The Bright Side

My act of contrition in the post Mea Culpa caused me to think about the history of Islamic and Christian relations, and whether or not there were, in fact, examples of people from both faiths living not just harmoniously, but actually working together to achieve something that was greater than the sum of their individual faith identities. I started down this path of thought, not merely in order to try and find some antidote to the present "controversy" surrounding a recent speech by Pope Benedict, but because it occurred to me that only the negative and destructive aspects of faith relations seem to get much press these days. I wanted to make my own contribution, however humble, to healing wounds and forging bonds, as oppossed to creating divisions or causing tension.

It should hardly be surprising that it did not require much thought or enquiry before I was able to find a number of examples from history to illustrate my point. Moreover, a recent encounter of my own brought home the point in a powerful and inspiring manner.

First, to the history, and for the sake of brevity, I will rest content with drawing on two examples from European history:

1. Moorish Spain. After the initial conquest that overthrew the old Visigothic kingdom of Spain, the North African Moors who overran the Iberian Peninsula proceded to create one of the most cosmopolitan, tolerant, progressive, and dynamic societies to have graced human history. Moorish Spain was a powerhouse of the arts, science, architecture, history, commerce, philosophy, and education, and was responsible for much of the lost knowledge from Greece and Rome being re-transmitted back to Europe. Scholars from all over the Mediterranean world flocked to cities like Granada and Cordoba to avail themselves of the riches flowing from this fountainhead of Islamic, Christian, and Jewish intellectual ferment and cross-fertilisation. If ever inter-faith relations had a "golden age", Moorish Spain would come close to being at the top of the list of candidates.
2. Norman Sicily. In what was possibly one of the most unlikely civilisations in human history, the aggressively and piratically militaristic Normans created a splendid and tolerant kingdom in Sicily and southern Italy in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. Drawing together the very best of Byzantine, Arabic, Jewish and western Christian traditions, the Normans forged a society that became a centre of commerce and learning, in which Jews, Christians, and Muslims all actively participated in freedom and security. Sadly, this "kingdom in the sun" (as it has been called by the English historian, John Julius Norwich) lasted less than a century, destroyed by the dynastic squabbles associated with the Holy Roman Empire.

Clearly, if history tells us anything, it is that co-operation and mutual respect and learning between faith traditions is not only possible and desirable, it in fact contributes greatly to the sum of human happiness. Indeed, that human beings are frequently less happy when this kind of mutual co-existence and cross-fertilisation is absent. Nor does this kind of enlightened cosmopolitanism require the adherents of any faith to either abandon their particular claims to religious truth, or insipidly accept the claims of other faiths. Rather, each faith community is able to co-exist in a mutually enriching dialogue, a kind of "spiritual dance" in which they are held together by the ties of respect, humanity, dignity, charity, and hope.

And this was brought home to me by my recent encounter with an incredible young woman from Sudan named Faten. She is a Muslim from the north of Sudan; and together with David, a young Christian from the south of Sudan (as well as other young Sudanese of a like mind) they are working together to bring hope, peace, and reconciliation to their troubled country, irrespective of its political future (a refurrendum will be held in a few years' time to determine if the country should remain a single unit or divide into separate states). Drawing on the reconciliation processes they have observed in other societies (such as South Africa) they will shortly be travelling to Sudan to organise a series of meetings, workshops, and conferences, which they hope will kick-start a process of peace-making at the social level, above and beyond the merely political. In particular, they hope to empower the young people of Sudan, to enable them to take charge of their own future and steer their country in new, co-operative, mutually respectful and mutually enriching directions.

Faten and her colleagues will be facing considerable difficulties and dangers in order to achieve their purpose. But their desire for peace and reconciliation is driven by their faith - Muslim and Christian - united by their humanity. It is hard not to be both moved and inspired, especially since it is my fear that faith will become the battleground of a new global "cold war" in which religious sensibilities are manipulated by both religious and secular vested interests. Indeed, the example provided by Faten and her friends is not only that this ought to not be the case, but that we should, in fact, be undertaking the kind of co-operative and constructive ventures that enhance our human dignity through the mutual care and respect that is actually and in truth implicit in faith.

They are showing us not merely what we ought not be, but what we can and should and must be.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: No task, rightly done, is truly private; it is part of the world's work. (Woodrow Wilson)