Many yearly rituals of Ramadan will continue even as some change in deference to our social responsibility to respect God’s laws in the universe. 

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan will be different this year. Around the world, mosques will be closed, when they would normally have worshipers spilling out onto the street. Extended families will remain apart, when they would typically gather for Iftar to break the fast and share homemade treats. And shopping malls, cafes and streets will be eerily quiet, when they would normally come alive after dark.

Ramadan still began on Thursday evening, though, and in the early hours on Friday morning, households gathered, as they have for centuries, to share a sleepy suhur — the pre-dawn meal.

Even as the world grapples with COVID-19, the yearly rituals of Ramadan will continue. Throughout the holy month, most of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims will fast between dawn and sunset, spend time in Quranic recitation, self-reflection and prayer in an effort to become closer to God, and give thanks for our blessings. But this year, the prescribed exceptions from fasting for young children, travelers, pregnant mothers and anyone who is sick will now be extended to those feeling symptoms of COVID-19.

And this year, our prayers will include special emphasis on the health care workers, emergency workers and other essential employees who are on the front lines of the fight to protect our communities. In the eyes of God, saving human lives and benefitting humanity are most noble endeavors: The Quran likens saving a life to saving the whole of humanity, and the Prophet Muhammad (upon whom be God’s peace and blessings) says that the best of humans are those who benefit other humans.

Our obligation to help and support those in need also takes on added meaning this year as our neighbors and communities face sickness, grief, economic hardship and the loneliness of self-isolation.

Perhaps the most difficult obligation for many, though, will be forgoing the long-planned gatherings of the season, in order to comply with precautions issued by authorities. But following these measures is a duty of our citizenship and a necessity of our social responsibility to respect God’s laws in the universe. For instance, the Prophet Muhammad — whose belief and trust in God was beyond description — even advised quarantining a town in the event of an infectious disease.

Each of us should take the extra time and space afforded by the pandemic’s social distancing measures as an opportunity for further examination of our connection with God, our families and our core values. This time offers a mandatory retreat from the busy nature of our daily lives and a chance to turn toward God, deepening our faith, knowledge and practice. I hope that imams will offer reminders about these opportunities to their congregations.

This period also forces us to rely on the internet and the technologies built upon it. Our young generations have been well-versed in these technologies ahead of their parents. Throughout history, messengers of God and those who strive for the enlightenment of humanity always used the available cultural tools and practices to spread their messages. We also must take this time to connect with our communities in new ways, including making our spiritual resources accessible to younger generations using their language and their familiar technologies.

The challenges of responding to the pandemic and altering our lives might push some of us to seek people to blame or to criticize. As we enter Ramadan, it is paramount that we devote ourselves to helping those in need, rather than finding others to blame. Even as people, groups or nations with whom we have had past differences may be suffering, each of us must reject as inhumane the thought that anyone deserved a calamity.

In a globalized world, nobody is isolated from a potent problem, be it environmental, medical or economic. This is a time to share data, and to collaborate to find solutions. This is a time to realize our interdependence as nations, as communities and as inhabitants of a global ecosystem — a time to recognize that we all are members of the human family and each have the opportunity to show the true potential of humanity.

As we enter this holy month, it is crucial that we look forward with hope and not despair, which stifles people and progress. Humanity has overcome great challenges in the past, and we will find ways to overcome this challenge, too. If we focus on the opportunities this pandemic presents, we will be able to keep our spirits high and reach the end of this tunnel much quicker.

Our observance of Ramadan will necessarily be different this year. But in many ways it will be like any other year: We will fast, we will pray, we will recite our holy book and we will take time for reflection and charity throughout the holy month. May God enable us to benefit fully from the feast of bounty in Ramadan.

This article has first been published on NBC News

Translated by Alp Aslandogan, the executive director of the Alliance for Shared Values.

Journey into Europe: Islam, Immigration and Identity explores the mighty continent of Europe by an academic whose origins lie in the Third World. Professor Akbar Ahmed, one of the renowned scholars of Islam, reverses the longstanding tradition of scholars from the Global North studying the Global South.

Professor Ahmed divides the book into three parts. Part I analyses the fundamental character of European society and its various identities; Part II dwells on the Muslim communities in Europe and elucidates their place on the continent; and Part III reflects on the major challenges the continent is facing and offers some incredibly prudent solutions to deal with them.

At the outset, the author juxtaposes the ideas of the twentieth century German sociologist, Max Weber, and those of the fourteenth century Arab sociologist, Ibn Khaldun, and critically examines European identity from their perspectives. He argues that Weber’s works, which evaluate societies on the parameters of modernity, fail to explain the recent developments in Europe, whereas Ibn Khaldun’s theories, which talk of tribal traditions and codes, perfectly sum up the state of affairs on the continent today.

Central to the analysis of Ibn Khaldun, the book highlights, was the nature of tribal society, which is defined through shared bloodlines and bound by what he called asabiyyah, or social cohesion. The book argues that the rise of right-wing politics across Europe is a sign of the re-emergence of the tribal nature of its society, which means that Ibn Khaldun provides the right framework for understanding the direction in which Europe is moving.

It highlights the predominance of the German culture and identity on the European continent and lucidly explains concepts such as Volk, Heimat, janteloven, and hygge that reflect what the author calls “Primordial Tribal Identity” among Germanic peoples. It is argued that these are the precise concepts that take predatory forms and target minorities when the continent is hit by economic and political instability, as is happening now.

The book also addresses, in great detail, “European Pluralistic Identity.” While doing so, the author elaborates the history and legacy of Muslim-ruled Andalusia, where knowledge and learning were highly regarded, and women and religious minorities were deeply respected. It highlights how ilm, or the Qur’anic instruction to seek knowledge, came to characterize the culture of Andalusia. As a result of what the author refers to as the “ilm ethos” of the erstwhile Andalusians, the region developed a pluralistic and inclusive culture, which in Spanish is called la convivencia, or coexistence.

This section of the book is particularly noteworthy as it underlines the direct, causal relationship between the ilm ethos and convivencia. The author rightly points out that “the urge to reach out to God through knowledge, which is embedded in the ilm ethos, is thus translated into an embrace of God’s creation irrespective of racial, religious, or class differences, which may be defined as convivencia.” It reminds us of the importance we need to give to understanding each other’s faith traditions if we want to do away with the conflict and intolerance that our world is today enduring.

The second part of the book explores the distinct Muslim communities of Europe, which are categorized as Muslim immigrants, indigenous Muslims, and Muslim converts.

The discussion over the condition of Muslim immigrants in Europe clearly refers to the stark difference between the character of British and French colonialism, and thereby the status of Muslim immigrants in these countries, the vast majority of whom have origins in their respective former colonies. It is diligently highlighted in the book that although both these countries, which exemplified European imperialism, have histories of atrocities against their colonial subjects, imperial Britain had a relatively inclusive approach which allowed its subjects to find a place and grow in British society while retaining their own identity with integrity; whereas, there was no such possibility for the French colonial subjects. As a result, while there are a number of immigrant success stories in all spheres of British public life, such as Baroness Sayeeda Warsi in politics, Sir Mo Farah in sports, Salman Rushdie in literature, and Abdus Salam in science, it is not possible to find Muslims excelling in such diverse fields in France.

With regards to the indigenous Muslim population of Europe, the book offers its readers a window into the native yet marginalized and forgotten Muslim communities of the continent. The author revives the memory of the horrific genocide against Bosnian Muslims in the early 1990s and quotes a very pertinent question by the former Mayor of Srebrenica, Camil Durakovic, as to whether the European response to it would have been as lethargic as it was if the Bosniaks had not been Muslims.

The social and economic conditions of other marginalized indigenous Muslim communities such as the Turks of Greece and Bulgaria, the Pomaks, and the Albanians; and the forgotten communities like the Tatars, the Roma, and the Cham are also fairly addressed in the book. Despite their long history of loyalty and service to their motherlands, they are not considered as part of the Volk in the nationalist, tribal imagination of Europe.

“The continent that centuries ago launched the crusades against the Muslim world and later colonized it is now, ironically, providing Islam with a new lease of life” (p. 306).

This sentence brilliantly encapsulates the significance of Muslim converts in Europe. At a time when referring to Islam as a religion of barbarity has become a norm, thousands of Europeans, especially women, are wholeheartedly embracing it:

“… Europeans approached the subject of conversion to Islam with intellectual seriousness and careful reasoning. They are in the tradition of the European philosophers in their quest for truth and meaning. … Their conversion is invariable a mixture of head and heart. It should also be noted that European primordial identity – which has reservations regarding morally vacuous materialism, consumerism, and globalization and defines differentiated roles for men and women – finds an echo in the attraction many converts feel toward Islam today” (p. 306).

The final part of the book deals with a range of matters of crucial importance, such as the effect of European primordial identity on Muslims and Jews, the impact of the repugnant terrorist group ISIS on the lives of European Muslims, and the imperative for convivencia on the continent.

This section of the book discusses in great detail how Jews were persecuted, and Muslims appreciated, throughout Europe’s history because of the typical attitude of primordial tribal identity towards religious and ethnic minorities. This attitude has been reflected in the works of German philosophers like Johann Gottfried von Herder. Herder believed that only those who lived in their own lands with the people of their own ethnicity and shared the same cultural traditions were deserving of respect, and therefore he disparaged the Jews for relocating to Europe and admired the Arabs for continuing to live in their original homeland in the deserts of the Middle East.

However, Ahmed notes that the establishment and the rise of the State of Israel has been a formidable force on European politics and perspectives. Simultaneously, the unabated chaos in the Middle East and the consequential refugee crisis have resulted in the dramatic reversal of relationships. Although anti-Semitism is still rife within European right-wing movements, the general European view of Jews, who are now settled in their homeland, is mostly positive; whereas even moderate Europeans view the Muslim community, who have been dislocated from their homelands, with suspicion.

A careful and comprehensive analysis has been done by the author on the issue of ISIS and the support that it garnered from some sections of European Muslims, which is reflected in the fact that over 5,000 of them travelled to Syria and Iraq to join the terrorist group. He argues “that supporters of terrorism are not monolith, and their paths to terrorism are different,” and divides “these Muslims into three categories: those immigrants with a tribal background, those with a modernist Islamic background, and European converts.”

The author gives a set of different reasons that these Muslims had/have for their support of the dreaded terrorist group. For instance, for those with a tribal background where taking revenge is part of the culture, marginalization, constant cultural humiliation, and an utter lack of opportunities in Europe drove some of them to seek revenge through terrorism. For those with a modernist Islamic background, the inability of elders to engage in serious intellectual debates meant they tried to find answers on the Internet, where some ended up reading literature posted by radical groups. Lacking proper guidance about their new faith and its doctrines, new European converts were not taught how to eliminate discrimination and injustice against their new fellow brothers and sisters in faith. In their efforts to find guidance, some were radicalized.

Ahmed’s book also points to the very important fact that support for ISIS is high in places where Islamophobia is high, and it is low where Islamophobia is low. It notes that given Southern Europe has some memory of convivencia and as a result has low Islamophobia, no European Muslims who travelled to the Middle East to join ISIS came from this region.

Based on the fieldwork findings, Professor Ahmed concludes his book with ten immensely valuable solutions. These are meant to contain the crisis that seems to be engulfing Europe. The first among them is reviving the ilm ethos and seeking knowledge about one another, which is extremely close to my heart.

Ahmed’s book is a must-read not only for students of anthropology and sociology but also for the decision-makers, in Europe and beyond.

Journey into Europe: Islam, Immigration and Identity
By Akbar Ahmed
591 pages, hardcover
Brookings Institution Press (February 27, 2018)
ISBN: 978-0815727583

Environmental destruction is wreaking havoc on treasured resources, like the Ganges River, but it’s also striking closer to home, in our local communities.

The Ganges River flows majestically through the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. It is ancient, sacred to the millions of Hindus who rely on it for daily sustenance, and unfortunately, becoming increasingly polluted. The causes of this pollution are plentiful; however, one of the most obvious is the wave of industrialization that has swept through the country in recent years and has left factories near the river, most notably tanning factories, whose runoff mixes with the water of the Ganges and contributes to the various health problems of those who live near, drink from, and bathe in the river. The case of Ganges River pollution is one of the many highly visible examples of the effects of modern industry on the environment. Today, industry supplies much of the world with items that are essential to everyday life, but the “footprints” that industrial pollution leaves behind are harmful to the environment and to the lives of many.

The effects that industrial pollution has on health are numerous, well researched, and in many cases frightening. Chromium, a chemical that is emitted by tanneries that operate along the Ganges, is a likely carcinogen. The toxic fumes that many different types of factories emit can cause suffocation, and even contain particles that burrow into and damage the lungs.

As previously mentioned, those who live near the Ganges often suffer from adverse health that is the result of the river’s pollution. However, the adverse effects of industrial pollution are also present in a land that many often erroneously associate with universal equality and prosperity, and the freedom to live in a safe, sheltered environment. In the book Sacrifice Zones, environmental writer Steve Lerner catalogs the struggles of communities of poor and marginalized peoples in the United States living with the physical and emotional effects of industrial pollution. One story of a communal victory against the forces that dispense pollution is that of several neighborhoods in Ocala, Florida, that lay in the shadows of Royal Oak, a charcoal plant. The plant emitted dark soot that coated and would even sneak inside of homes, cars, gardens, and children’s toys, and wreaked havoc on the health of those who were forced to live near it. Despite this, Royal Oak continued to operate, until community activist Ruth Reed galvanized the formation of a grassroots organization that contacted local government leaders, collected evidence of pollution in the area, obtained a lawyer, and eventually, with enough lobbying, was able to have Royal Oak shut down.

The struggles of the communities in Ocala began after the Royal Oak plant was built in the late 1960s, and continued well into the earliest years of the twenty-first century. To spread the news about the pollution that was impairing their lives, citizens contacted the local news, both newspapers and television stations. They did not have the luxury of utilizing today’s internet to reach out for assistance beyond their communities, as is often done today when social justice is the issue. The way people use the internet to communicate with each other today is much more sophisticated than it was only a few years ago. The average user of one of today’s popular social media sites like Facebook and Twitter sees a myriad of posts written by individuals and organizations encouraging the public to donate money to a worthy cause, vote yes or no on a certain political issue, or to even keep an eye out for a missing loved one, and these posts are very effective. The internet and social media are dominated by young people, and because of this, young people today have an unprecedented amount of societal and political influence, influence that can be used to help quell pollution. If industrial pollution is to be combated, and if the destructive human footprint that is being left on the environment is to be reduced, children, who wield the power of using the internet to share information about their environment and the injustices done to it, must receive a much more comprehensive environmental education.

What constitutes a comprehensive environmental education is sure to vary wildly. However, one thing is certain – it must involve the development of communication and leadership skills among young people, skills that enable them to come together, collaborate, and develop new ideas to lessen the human footprint on the environment, and make the world a safer place to live in the future.

References

Basu, Arin. “The Health Effects of Industrial Pollution: A Primer.” www.infochangeindia.org. N.p., Nov. 2004. Web. Feb. 1.

G., Jasmine. “Problems and Solutions for the Ganges River.” Care2. N.p., 13 Sept. 2010. Web. 09 Feb. 2013.

“Ganges River – Problems.” Problems of the Ganges River. Bryant University, n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2013. <http://web.bryant.edu/~langlois/ecology/gangesproblems.htm>.

Lerner, Steve. “Ocala, Florida: Community Blanketed by “Black Snow” from Neighboring Charcoal Factory.” Sacrifice Zones: The Front Lines of Toxic Chemical Exposure in the United States. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2010. 19-40. Print.

Divine favors that are granted out of God’s will refer to favors that are not dependent upon human willpower and choice. In this respect, everything that we possess may be and should be considered divine favors. That we come into existence from non-existence, that we exist as humans rather than as animals or plants, that we are born into believing families and communities, that we are given a healthy body, etcetera – you can extend the list as long as you want. All these are favors granted to us in return for nothing.

As for its diverse dimensions, we have to consider belief in God Almighty the foremost favor. Belief is a Divine favor. For while there are those who cannot benefit from the most convenient contexts of belief, there are other people in the most unlikely contexts who happen to meet belief and embrace it sincerely. Many examples around us prove that belief or faith is a blessing that comes through as divine grace. Many smart people with brilliant minds live without a compass and without a purpose, for they cannot free themselves from the past baggage of misguided perspectives. It is even harder for those who are in a position to lead their communities, for now they have to speak to their people to tell them that the path they took so far was wrong.

Another dimension of Divine favor is to grow up in a community where one isn’t profiled for their associations or beliefs. If we happen to be in a community where individuals are welcomed regardless of their racial, cultural, or religious identities, where no one is discriminated against because of his family relations or social allegiances, then this is a manifest Divine favor as well. In such a community, other groups are not defamed for their way of life, but on the contrary they are praised for their respective methods of public service and engagement. The opposite would be to narrow down and shrink the otherwise expansive nature of faith that welcomes all and which does not segregate those who are different. Such exclusivist attitudes lead to misunderstandings and raise concerns about religious thought which by definition should be inclusive.

One more favor that is significant and must be mentioned is the feeling of contentment as opposed to seeking benefits and self-interest. Future conflicts that may possibly arise at times of new worldly opportunities can only be prevented when people take a step back in an altruistic spirit, just as in the example of Hasan, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

Hasan (d. 669) had an opportunity to seek political leadership, and though he had an enormous amount of popular support, he did not wish to risk people’s lives or threaten social stability, and thus did not accept this opportunity. It is important to follow in his track and refuse any worldly gain when others are competing for such gains, and instead be prepared to even retreat into a cave, if this would be to the benefit of the community.

This attitude, which we may call contentment or abstinence, is a priceless virtue for a community. When, during a conflict, one party raises their hand to hit, they will not find a material form before them, for the contented party will already have vanished, avoiding any sort of fight whatsoever. The one who starts a fight is wrong, even if he is absolutely on the right side of the issue.

Perhaps the most important of all Divine favors is the consciousness that these gifts are divinely granted and that our willpower has nothing to do with them. Human willpower is a basic condition that is required for all matters, even for the most important ones. Yet, in the context of divine favors as described above, it is almost impossible to claim the intervention of human willpower. We have been created as human, the most honorable and superior of all creation in the universe. We are born into a world where we are given all opportunities to reveal our full potential to become “the perfect human” (al-insan al-kamil). In this life, we are given a whole infrastructure and the necessary dynamics to reach the horizons of being fully human as the giants of human history did. And these are no doubt “given” to us without us being involved.

What falls on our side is not to treat these favors as if we accidentally bumped into them, but as the most precious property entrusted to us and do our best to deserve their continuous bestowal. Each individual honored with these blessings should take all measures to keep them safe and to offer wholehearted thanks to the One in appreciation for all His favors.

Indeed, the world has once again stepped into a zone of spiritual crisis—and this in itself is a historical recurrence. Before delving into the details of the topic, it would be more useful to expound on the meaning and nature of historical recurrences.

Yes, history is filled with recurrences. These recurrences are not identical to the past, but show some form of resemblance. If they had been identical, then lessons would have been learned and the same mistakes would not have been made. Thus we need to approach history not hoping to arrive at decisive conclusions, as if it would recur identically, but rather to draw wisdom from it, for we will encounter events that will resemble similar moments in the past. Let us now try and view our current crisis from this perspective.

It has often been observed that the periods in history when God burdened and pressured people the most have inspired humanity to sail towards new horizons. This is the case for individuals as well as communities. That is, just as when an individual’s burdens reaching their zenith indicates the moment of salvation is near, excessive social burdens have always refined the community and guided them in new directions. The following saintly words on the night’s darkness reflect what we are trying to say here: “Get as dark as you can. For the last phase of darkness is the moment light begins to shine forth.”

Furthermore, the macro-universe and the human being (the eminent sultan of the normo-universe) are so similar that they are almost identical. Due to this fact, let us start the discussion with the individual, by way of comparison. The relief and contentment experienced by individuals are sometimes followed by spiritual and conscientious expansions. In some other instances, the opposite may happen. Contraction, or qabdh in Islamic Sufi terminology, means being pressed or put under pressure. The handle of the sword that is interlocked with fingers and pressed is also called “qabdha.” Qabdh can also be defined as being held extremely tightly by an unknown hand. This term, indeed, has been added to Sufi terminology with this particular connotation.

The state of contraction may sometimes originate from certain individual sins, or from individual heedlessness. At first, a person unleashes himself into an effervescent climate, and lives, for some time, in a light-headed state. Immediately after, as a form of punishment, a person becomes exposed to contraction. Maybe, it is the soul that wishes to experience this state, for the redundancy of comfort and lethargy annoys the soul. Consequently, the soul often gets annoyed by the exuberance of the material world, because it wishes to be, and to stay, in a state of spiritual alertness and vibrancy regarding its longing for eternity.

In this regard, contraction results when a person lets go of himself, and is consequently cautioned by the Hand of Power. God exposes a person to contraction in order for that person to re-direct themself to Him. This is very similar to when a mother lightly slaps her child to prevent her baby from doing something wrong, or going somewhere bad, and then embraces her baby mercifully and lovingly.

In such a state, roads narrow and do not give way; causes gradually start to vanish. Here, just at this moment, one removes all causes from his memory and directs himself to the One who holds all causes in His Mighty Hand. Essentially, the aim of the Almighty is to direct a person to Himself. In these cases, if a person comprehends the real cause of what befell him, and returns to the Almighty, it means that the goal has been achieved. However, reaching this point requires an astute consciousness and perception to comprehend the fact that no single incident in the universe occurs due to blind or arbitrary coincidence. In his commentary on the Qur’an, Nursi portrays the position of two people who have fallen into a well in light of the current issue: One of the two is deprived of his ability to inquire about the hidden aspect of matters. The other person is a man of wisdom. And through the window of wisdom, this second man speaks to himself as follows (Eighth Word):

“These matters do not actually seem to be coincidental. A lion suddenly starts chasing me while I have been running in the desert; then I fall into a well and hold a tree; two mice, a black one and a white one, on the root of the tree have been gnawing at the tree; and, a dragon down below has been waiting for the moment of my fall, with a mouth wide open. Up above, the lion threatens me with his scary behavior. Standing shoulder to shoulder, these incidents can in no way take place coincidentally or by chance. Apparently, all these have been preplanned by Someone who knows me; and all these are represented through my existence.”

You see, every person who has experienced the state of contraction should view incidents in a similar way, and say to themselves: “all these incidents embracing me so tightly are directed by a superior might exceeding myself, and I am a mere extra in this play.” Of course, this should not be considered sufficient, and right away, one should take refuge in the sovereignty of the One who holds the entirety of existence in His Holy Hand.

This situation is valid for communities, too. A community is sometimes held and pressed by an iron claw, and this can be said to be that community’s contraction . Reasons for such contraction include living in idleness, being unaware of their return to Him, knocking on the wrong doors, or seeking cures in the wrong places.

Today, we can see, through the contraction of individuals and communities, that history repeats itself. This repetition has shown that troubles and turmoil can mark the beginnings of new exaltations. The crisis we are experiencing today shall become a bridge to new energy and exuberance. Indeed, is it not our mission to prepare a new era of exaltation for humanity?

A consocational democracy is a type of democracy which emphasizes the importance of power-sharing and decision-making among different segments in society. But is consociational democracy the most suitable form of democracy when it comes to establishing lasting peace in post-conflict societies?

Consocational democracy addresses problems in democratic state building that result from deep segmentation. These divisions as a result are easily defined and measured where real boundaries (political or otherwise) exist. As a result of these environmental and social conditions there exists a natural tendency for competition and the supporting of ethnically-based parties (Andeweg 2000).

The consocational framework is dependent on elite cooperation. This is the centerpiece of the model and is based on the premise that communal violence between groups is often exacerbated by elites so that when these elites have a voice in government, they have a vested interest in maintaining its integrity. Although elite meddling in conflict is the most potent, it is not the only incendiary in inter-group relations (Andeweg 2000).

Under the current model where a society has the characteristics necessitating a consocational framework, the sub-groups have two choices: to remain a part of the country or to separate. These two forces pull on individuals of each group in which decisions are often based on various factors. Those societies that do not cooperate are termed “centrifugal.” In this case, the sub-groups emphasize separation over integration. Consocationalism is a top-down integration/cooperation mechanism that seeks to overcome centrifugal forces (Andeweg 2000).

Loyaltiyes and state building

One of the forces that create these centrifugal tendencies is also one of the characteristics that make communal life possible i.e. group loyalty. According to A.A.M. Kinneging (2004) loyalty, “pertains to a bond that withstands the passing of time and the winds of change: a bond that is conceived of as lasting, permanent, unbreakable, even holy” (Kinneging 2004, 68). This definition of loyalty indicates how intractable it is when integrating many different groups with different loyalties under one government. In this case, as Kinneging points out, the community is higher than the individual. In ethnically homogenous countries this presents no problem and allows democracy to flourish at all levels. Often times this is not the case in heterogeneous societies where either the state enforces a loyalty to its institutions, such as in the republican liberal democracy model, while still maintaining individual rights or enforces it in such a way that violates individual rights in an undemocratic manner.

Loyalties typically follow racial or religious lines. They can even be more fragmented such as loyalty to one’s town or city. Evidence can be seen in the sport’s world. Loyalty is typically to a person or an institution (Healy 2007). Loyalty to the nation-state has been somewhat of a recent phenomenon. The lack of loyalty can be detrimental to state integrity when it is towards another group. The lack of loyalty between sub-groups is something that consocationalism does not address as it represents an administrative/electoral solution to a heavily divided society. It does not address the psychological/emotional element that loyalty forms a part of and which in essence is the backbone of society.

Lijphart envisioned consocationalism as a temporary solution in which it was only meant as a transitory phase to greater levels of democratic cooperation (Andeweg 2000). This of course assumes that through elite cooperation and living peacefully alongside each other under one roof, it is possible that these groups would eventually reconcile their differences and move to greater integration. Unfortunately, there is the other direction such as entrenched differences that only get worse with time that may stalemate/postpone the conflict i.e. not resolving the conflicts (Fox & Miller 2007). Still, consocational democracy is considered the best option for deeply stratified societies because it recognizes, among other things, that some sub-groups have a complete way of life that requires a certain level of autonomy from the state.

The risk in this approach is that these sub-groups may look at the government as a burden or unnecessary overhang on complete control of their affairs. In response, the state may have a few choices at its disposal that may either create incentives such as the consocational framework or force a state identity upon all sub-groups, essentially eliminating them.

Bosnia: Adversarial communities under one roof

Bosnia is composed of three adversarial communities that have existed since the 15th century. Primarily, these communities came into existence around a particular religion. These religions of interest in the Bosnian case are Orthodox Christianity, Catholic Christianity and Islam. The Serbian people primarily follow Orthodox Christianity, the Croatians follow Catholic Christianity, and the Bosniacs follow Islam. These communities erupted into full-fledged war in the early 90’s when the Orthodox Serbs engaged in genocide against the Muslim Bosniacs (Kasapovic 2005).

These people were subject to the first consocational system of the world, the millet system which was implemented by the Ottoman Empire shortly after conquering the area that is now the former Yugoslavia. The millet system, which has roots in the religion of Islam, gave different religious communities their own autonomy headed by an elite (millet bashi) who was responsible for different religious and civil areas. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the various nation-states that emerged did not act so kindly on the remaining Muslim groups and either forced them to leave or massacred them. The Bosniacs represented a unique example as well as other indigenous ethnic groups who converted to Islam during Ottoman rule (Katsikas 2009).

These communities have historical differences that cannot disappear overnight. The Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croatians owe their divide to the Great Schism in the 11th century between Constantinople and Rome (Norwich 1999). The Muslim Bosniacs and Orthodox Serbs owe their divide to Serb defeat at the hands of the Ottomans in the 14th century (Kinross 2003). Although present-day communities probably give little thought to these events, the mimetic transmission of hatred means that these communities are seemingly locked in an adversarial relationship.

After the 1995 Dayton Peace Accord, a consocational-type government was established. Kasapovic described it as an “asymmetrical confederation” in which the country is divided into two parts with one part being more consocational between Bosniacs and Croatians and the other representing a more homogenous state of Serbs. At the national level equal representation is given to the three groups, mutual veto exists, autonomy is given to each group, and consensus is maintained (Kasapovic 2005).

More than fifteen years after the Dayton Peace Accord there is peace, but as Kasapovic pointed out, this is only because all groups consented to peace. Kasapovic notes that the state is still highly unstable because there is no consensus on its organization and there are continuing external threats that may tear the country apart (Kasapovic 2005). This instability means that these groups, by and large, have not resolved their differences.

He argues that there are three reasons for this inefficiency of the model of consocational democracy, one “at the level of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state, and one more at the level of the Federation as a state sub-entity: no consensus on the state, no consensus on the political system, no consistent strategy of international actors in establishing a democratic state, and the unfavorable two-segmental structure of the Federation with one segment outnumbering the other” (Kasapovic 2005, 9).

The fact remains that despite living in a consocational-type system for six centuries, the different groups that compose Bosnia’s adversarial groups have not cooperated at any level that would have caused them to avoid the deluge in the early 90’s. This indicates that although these people are living together under one country, they harbor distrust or hatred of those who compose the other group. The fact that they are all part of one country appears to have no influence on the perceptions towards the other group.

Considering that this conflict has been ongoing at varying intensities for several hundred years, an unfreezing process is needed. The concept of unfreezing has its roots with the organization theorist Kurt Lewin who proposed an unfreezing, moving/changing, and re-freezing process. In the process, values are changed and thus can be labeled change management. The re-freezing may have more clout with individual organizations, but the re-freezing creates an organized way of thinking akin to concepts of efficiency i.e. an established uniform identity (Levasseur 2001).

The involvement of religious leaders has importance in this case. Since these conflicts involved Christian and Muslim communities which are international religions, and since these conflicts also involved an international response, these local conflicts have implications that are not only local. International religious leaders should remember to be sensitive to religious sentiments despite their distance from Bosnia.

Haynes pointed out that one of the problems of the roles religious leaders face is that they lack the capacity to build a strategy for peace (Haynes 2009). As members of an international faith, these leaders would have access to a large network of resources that would facilitate them in their role as peace-makers. One of the aspects that may be appropriately addressed in Bosnia is training these leaders to both acquire these resources as well as use them appropriately. This would make their role far more influential than the elites.

The side effect is that many of these religious leaders may have instigated violence against the other or continue to preach hatred towards the other. These leaders need to either be isolated by the national government or reprimanded severely by those leaders of international representation. The globalized world makes all this possible. The world in this essence can either be a harbinger of peace or a catalyst for war at the local level.

Religious leaders should be engaged in dialog with each other as much as other community members are engaged in workshops both inventing solutions and implementing them. Once a healthy environment of dialog is fostered, then either naturally or through planned social action, inclusive networks should be developed. These networks can create cooperation and community.

Lastly, the existence of these networks means that the state as a reactionary entity becomes a mirror of that society. In this case, the consocational model of governance might work and if possible a more unified democratic format may be chosen. The result would be a multi-group democratic state with shared loyalties to the state, one’s own group, and to another group. This does not guarantee continued peace, but at least secures it much more tightly than as proposed under the consocational framework alone.

Hummel is a doctoral candidate at the School of Public Administration, Florida Atlantic University.

References

• Andeweg, Ruby B. 2000. “Consociational democracy,” Annual Review of Political Science 3, no. 1: 509-536.
• Fox, Charles & Hugh Miller. 2007. Postmodern Public Administration, Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe.
• Haynes, Jeffrey. 2009. “Conflict, Conflict Resolution and Peace-building: The Role of Religion in Mozambique, Nigeria and Cambodia,” Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 47, no.1: 52-75.
• Healy, Mary. 2007. “School Choice, Brand Loyalty and Civic Loyalty,” Journal of Philosophy of Education 41, no. 4: 743-756.
• Kasapovic, Mirjana. 2005. “Bosnia and Herzegovina: Consociational or Liberal Democracy,” Croatian Political Science Review 42, no. 5: 3-30.
• Katsikas, Stefanos. 2009. “Millets in Nation-states: The Case of Greek and Bulgarian Muslims,” Nationalities Papers 37, no. 2: 177-201.
• Kinneging, Andreas A. M. 2004. “Loyalty in the Modern World,” Modern Age 46, no. 1/2: 68.
• Kinross, Lord. 2003. The Ottoman Empire, London: Folio Society.
• Levasseur, Robert E. 2001. “People Skills: Change Management Tools – Lewin’s Change Model,” Interfaces 31, no. 4: 3.
• Norwich, John J. 1999. A Short History of Byzantium, New York: Vintage Books.

At the onset of the twenty-first century, a new relationship is being forged between my own Greek Orthodox Christian community and the Turkish Muslim community of the United States. That such a dialogue occurs at all surprises some within and beyond these communities, not understanding that such a dialogue has a long and complicated history in Turkey itself. Still, the stereotyped, traditional conflict between the Greeks and Turks has always been more complicated than what is portrayed outside of Greece and Turkey. The fact that the nascent American version of this dialogue between two communities has developed largely following the events of September 11, 2001, is therefore somewhat coincidental; that it has evolved in a society coming to terms with cultural and religious realities largely ignored by the majority prior to those events has only created an atmosphere where our work is increasingly perceived as necessary within both communities.

When coming “face to face” in dialogue, it is always an honor to be with so many people of like mind, who, for the sake of peace and justice and the higher ideals of their individual professions of faith and spiritual law, seek what St. Paul calls “a more excellent way.” Surely we “religious types” and others whose intellectual currency is the exchange of ideas between cultures, are in our day and age (a tense time of fear and resentment) unique stewards of a special and exceptional place in history. As representatives of our respective cultures and faiths, as representatives of what our individual culture’s legacy has shaped each of us to be, we are the inheritors of a vast wealth of knowledge, beauty, and pain. Surely, even though we are inheritors of history’s conflicts-which admittedly, sometimes color our more noble attempts to turn mere tolerance into understanding-we should be able to find some purpose and encouragement in that same history. This is not an easy thing in our time, in this age of constant media noise and lack of historical context.

The Greek Orthodox Christian and Turkish Muslim communities share a unique past; hence, our dialogue emerges from a complex, and, at times, painful history that Orthodox Christianity and Islam, Greece and Turkey have suffered and shared.

Yet we have come a long way. We have traveled a difficult road filled with many obstacles, physical violence, and the metaphorical obstacles of our intellectual insecurities that have perhaps hampered our higher aspirations even more than the former darkness of our historical conflicts. The influential and intellectually challenging Muslim thinker Fethullah Gülen puts it in another way, in broader terms, when he writes:

Negative feelings and attributes often defeat people, pulling them under their domination to such an extent that even the religions that guide people to goodness and kindness are abused, as well as the feelings and attributes that are sources of absolute good.

How truly these words reflect the experience for so many of us and for our ancestors. And struggling with religion’s truths-perhaps too weighty for us to comprehend fully and therefore abused by all of us, each of us misapplying our own ideals to baser human endeavors-we have suffered. What we did not understand was that we were suffering together. In retrospect, our shared history contains hope for our shared destiny.

Allow me to depict an image from our shared past, to recount an event shared by Greek Orthodox Christians and Turkish Muslims that is often overlooked. However, it has silently brought a message to us through the ages. In Istanbul, there are two images in the Patriarchate at the Phanar, two mosaics. They grace the foyer at the entrance of the main office building. On the one side is a depiction of St. Andrew, the First Called of Jesus’ Apostles and the first Bishop of Byzantium. With him is Stachys, Andrew’s successor (from 38-54 CE) in a long line of bishops who have made Byzantium, Constantinople, and Istanbul their home to the present. On the other side of that foyer at the Phanar is a mosaic that depicts the Patriarch Gennadios. He stands with his hand open, receiving a document being handed to him by Sultan Mehmet II in 1453. It is the Firman, the legal document guaranteeing that the Orthodox Church would continue its traditions and mission among its people during Muslim Ottoman rule.

The first image depicts the beginning of one of our peoples’ faith traditions. The next image depicts the inherent understanding of tradition that the progenitors of the Turkish nation had and would continue to keep. Our shared history is, obviously, something less than perfect. It is a human story about human people. Nevertheless, time and the tides of numerous historical fortunes have brought us to this moment in the United States. And we are together at this moment, in yet another time, in ways that could have only occurred because of this culture’s strengths. Imagine what this dialogue might mean to our ancestors if they were to see us now-Turks and Greeks together, sharing freedom, sharing meals at banquets, working together in a common cause and, most importantly, hoping for a still better future.

I, a Greek Orthodox bishop, one born in the United States, whose spiritual ties are to that great city on the shores of the Bosphorus, have stood before Turkish audiences and the people of America’s multi-cultural, multi-ethnic faith traditions, as an honored guest. We have been together at a table laden with the true food of human being-of human existence: understanding, mutual respect and hope.

Our future is contingent upon our acknowledgment of the past. History is always the greatest teacher. And after the long, difficult history of our interactions, we have something else that can and must help us become even greater witnesses: each of our own cultures and of the shared experiences we still remember. It is perhaps a difficult truth to embrace, but those who have been enemies quite often understand each other better than those who have never been part of their conflict. In the film, The Matrix Reloaded, one character says to another, whom he has just fought: “You never really know who someone is until you fight him.”

At this point in our history, when the need to fight has long passed, we have an opportunity to look at each other in a unique and intense way, and seeing one another in truth and love, we may yet see ourselves in the other. And this then may become the key to our common future and works of righteousness done in shared hope for a better world.

So, perhaps we have even managed to give goodness to the world together, to save what was the best of our respective histories, and allow the future to be a mirror, worthy of the deepest truths of our faiths, in which to see the truest reflection of our humanity. Turan Oflazoðlu says, “What we need is to enrich ourselves with those aspects of foreign culture which are not congenial to our nature.” We must seek the “other” amongst us and invite them into our lives. We must share our hopes our fears, our joys, and our sorrows. We must find ways of transcending our conflicts, both historical and intellectual, and create a new future together. My reflection on this dialogue is that, “We are the world in small.” May we may now truly praise the Creator’s gift of life in all its diversity, and walk together into the future in a new way. I hope that we will take the second step with the same sense of warmth and respect that we have experienced the first step. To quote the late, great prophet of reconciliation, Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras- ἐλάτε νά κοιτταχOούμε – “come, let us look into one another’s eyes.”

The Example of Greek-Turkish Dialogue in Post-9/11 America
Bishop Demetrios of Mokissos
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America,
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople

The Need for Balance

Human beings are social creatures with a complicated network of relations. No one can be completely independent of this network, for each person’s survival depends upon it. Given this, a constant search for balance between these relations is necessary to avoid conflict. Classical Greek philosophers considered humanity a zo-on politikon-a political mammal, thus emphasizing the fact that every person is, in some way, a political actor.

For believers and Muslims, belief is an essential component of human existence. Even some agnostic humanists accept the possibility of a spiritual life and recognize its ethical merits. Given this, political and spiritual activities cannot be separated from human life or from each other. In other words, they have a holistic link. This concept also is found in a more specific Christian perspective and in the Islamic tradition. Among its European exponents have been Dag Hammarskjold, Thomas Masaryk, and Vaclav Havel.¹ Ms. Salima Ghezali and Prof. Abu Zaid are fine examples of active Muslim as meta-politicians.²

Before delving into this subject further, it is necessary to make the following points clear. First, a distinction must be made between policy and politics, between power plays and party strategy on the one hand and policy as a long-time approach to social problems on the other. As policy conforms better with the classical Greek concept of politeia (the government of the city/society or polis), I shall concentrate upon it.

Second, I use Islam not in the political context of Arabism, political rituals, or self-proclaimed Islamic states, but in its literal meaning of monotheism and belief in Divine Unicity and a coherent creation as explained in the Qur’an. In this spiritual context, every man and woman who reaches a certain age and is mentally competent is entirely and directly responsible for each of his or her acts.

Islam, in the context of this reality, means accepting this responsibility and using one’s God-given intellect and dignity to keep on the “just path” (the Shari‘a). There is no room for any human-made religious hierarchy (e.g., imam, ayatolla, caliph, amir³), or for fatalism or passivity, for personal responsibility means that one has to choose instead of be led by others.

Spirituality and Society

The well-known phrase al-Islam din wa dunya (Islam is spirituality and society) can serve as a starting point in the search for harmony between Muslim identity and political action. Din refers to Islam as a whole. Its most important points are Islam’s pillars, belief, duties, external principles (the Shari‘a), inner experience (Sufism), and striving against the ego (jihad). All of this, taken together, forms Islam-in-society. In this authentic Islam, no religious or secular hierarchy serves as an intermediary between believers and God. This fact, unfortunately, is often overlooked or ignored. Various people and groups have linked it to state structure, national community, political nationalism, tribal society, and even political party. All such attempts are abuses of Islam.

Dunya refers to human society as a whole. It is not a mono-religious community, but rather a society in which several religious and philosophical communities use their status as citizens to contribute to the well-being of all. An example of such a concept is found in European humanist organizations, whose members can be atheists, agnostics, or spiritual-without-specification.

There is no reason for Muslims to be prejudiced against such groups, for their adherents are neither anti-Islamic nor partisans of ignorance. Not being religious does not mean being against religion. These groups work for human dignity and responsibility just as Muslims do, although they approach it from a different perspective. Dunya is holistic, and its aspects (e.g., psychology, politics, art, science, sexuality, and history) interact intensively. Abuses have been just as numerous as corrections throughout the Muslim world’s 1,400-plus years of existence. Authentic Islam has not always been triumphant in the past, but it still carries the promise of a splendid future. It is in the hands of inspired, contemporary Muslims to decide.

Church and State

Europe remains suspicious about any attempt to unify religion and politics. This is quite understandable when one considers the traumatic history that such attempts caused in Europe. The first one involved the Muslim world directly: the Crusades.⁴ The “liberation of the Holy Land,” according to Roman Catholic scholars, was a nightmare for the Greek and Eastern Christian communities. Given the facts that the independent Crusader kingdoms fought each other and that Muslims lived in Jerusalem for 4 centuries before the Crusades, the official history of the Crusades turns out to be false. All of the involved communities were traumatized and left with feelings of mutual suspicion and hostility. Whatever good relations remained between Muslims and Christians were confined to mercantile elites, for the general populations remained hostile to each other.

Four centuries later, starting with Luther’s declaration in 1517 against the Catholic Church, Europe became a battlefield for Catholic and Protestant armies.⁵ The Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, which raged during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and was a period of incredible cruelty and massacre, lasted until the end of the Thirty Years War (1648). Millions of people were killed by warfare, famine, and disease-and yet nobody “won.” Out of this violence came the emergency measure to separate church and state. Gradually modified, this concept would become known as laicity during the French Revolution (1789-99).

Before laicity took hold, however, the concept of individual freedom of religion was negated by allocating different Christian denominations to different states. At that moment, the Ottoman State applied a more advanced form of multi-religious coexistence in a single state. The church hierarchy weakened throughout the nineteenth century, while the European states become more democratic. There was another chance to harmonize the link between religion and policy, this time in a democratic way.

The twentieth century witnessed the worst crimes against humanity in recorded history. These were carried out by systems and states that rejected all previously influential religious concepts. And so the perception of religion changed again, this time in a positive way. In this new trauma, people complained about the absence of religion as a moderating and peacemaking force. (O God, why were You absent in Auschwitz?) After WWII, laic states could keep their structure and renew their content. Nearly all European nations have adopted some form of laicity. But this does not mean that they are anti-religious or anti-Islam. If laicity and democracy are not yet perfect, they only need to be improved. There is no reason to criticize laicity as such. These governments are the expressions of their own imperfect democracy.

This process is determined by economic as well as cultural factors. Religious communities can contribute to the perfection of democracy if their own intra-religious dynamic is not usurped by any clerical power group. Only such a status will allow them to have democratic ties with other religious and philosophical groups and with society as a whole.

Muslim Communities in Europe

European Muslims live as dispersed minority communities in many European countries, be they constitutional monarchies, republics, or otherwise. Ballot systems differ, as does the size of the Parliament, terms of elections, and so on. Essentially, there is consultancy between the state and the population, as well as between the citizens themselves.

This concept of mutual consultancy (shura) is found in the Qur’an: The believers conduct their affairs in mutual consent (42:39). The Qur’an recommends a method for policy, not a political organization. The Prophet was not told to establish a state or name a successor. From the Traditions, we learn that he knew that his function was only to guide and protect his community. The title of caliph, based upon Qur’an 33:72, applies to all people as spiritual representatives and followers of God. It has no political function in authentic Islam, and this and all other titles are no more than human inventions.

Within the context of European society, shura can-and should-take the form of democratic commitment. European citizens and the Muslim community can reinforce each other during these years of broad general disgust with local and even national political institutions. As such people consider democracy corrupt, inefficient, or obsolete, Muslims can oppose this defection from democracy by pointing out that such a development might acutally make the situation even worse.

According to the Qur’an, Prophethood contains identical elements regardless of the Prophet. So, what was significant for Prophet Muhammad was significant for all other Prophets. Consider the case of Moses who, according to both the Bible and the Qur’an, was sent to guide and inspire his enslaved people. He went to Pharaoh and, accepting the risk of royal anger, called for moderation and justice. Indeed, Pharaoh rejected his demand and became even more cruel. After Divine intervention, Moses led his people on their long and dangerous journey toward the land where, according to God’s Promise, they would find freedom and justice.

The Jewish identity was formed during this journey. Moses did not offer a well-defined territory or become the head of a state. In fact, his authority was even challenged at times. The dynamism of Prophetic action was the main element in this journey, as it was in Prophet Muhammad’s emigration to Madina to establish the Muslim community in a welcoming atmosphere.

From a moral point of view, Vaclav Havel might be one of Europe’s most significant contemporary politicians.6 He represents a religious view in a discrete way, without stating membership in a particular religious community and certainly not claiming leadership. He is democratic in his methods, and considers religion only as a motivation to act. However, it really counts. He resembles his predecessor Masaryk, who was a philosopher and a litterateur before assuming political responsibilities. Although underestimated as a politician when compared with Churchill or de Gaulle, his life has been just as adventurous as theirs despite the much smaller size of his country.

European Muslim intellectuals and would-be politicians would be well advised to study the lives and decisions of Masaryk and Havel, for both escaped from the narrow-minded nationalism that has trapped so many Muslim Arab politicians. To them, nationalism meant preserving the local cultural heritage in order to strengthen the popular identity in face of oppression. This is a valuable gift to humanity, rather than a treasure to be guarded jealously. Havel began his political activity by writing a letter to President Gustav Husak to protest the injustice of the Soviet military occupation of Czechoslovakia. Husak, just like Pharaoh, rejected it. And so we ask: Is there a parallel between the actions of Moses and Havel? How significant is the fact that these two men, one a Prophet and the other a politician-philosopher, had no desire for power? Such questions might inspire Christians and Muslims. Also, didn’t Muslims consider the downfall of communism, to which Havel contributed greatly, a symbolic and even religious fact?

Conclusion

As European Muslims face problems that are usually identical to those of the entire population, isolation is a completely inappropriate solution. Maintaining cultural and linguistic heritages should be done by cultural, as opposed to political, associations. The current trend of Muslim involvement in several political tendencies without forming a Muslim political party needs to be reinforced. The emergence of a self-proclaimed Muslim party is not desirable, for its impact would be negative-other such parties would be formed by those who, for whatever reason, would view that party as not “Muslim” enough. This would engender isolation, quarrels, and maybe even violence. A far better solution would be to increase communication between existing parties and between politicians and citizens. Such an approach is Qur’anic in nature.

Whenever democracy is threatened by a politician or political ideology that pays no respect to internal democracy or promotes discrimination or racism, the best antidote is a good civic policy. Such a negative scenario is now developing in Belgium. Our local Muslim politicians should be the first ones to insist that a policy of justice and honesty be carried out by all democratic parties. This is far more efficient than legal action, ballot reforms or thresholds, alarmist attitudes, or pretending that the problem is not so bad. This does not exclude the possibility of lawsuits against politicians who try to win votes by racist appeals. In addition, exit polls on election day should be forbidden so that false information cannot lead to questionable results

Footnotes

1. Dag Hammarskjold (1905-61): Swedish economist, statesman, and secretary-general of the UN (1953-61) He is generally thought to have combined great moral force with subtlety in meeting international challenges; Tomaš Masaryk (1850-1937): Chief founder and first president (1918-35) of Czechoslovakia; Vaclav Havel (1936- ): Prominent Czech playwright, poet, and political dissident, who, after the fall of communism, was president of Czechoslovakia (1989-92) and president of the Czech Republic (1993- ).
2. Ms. Salima Ghezali: Algerian publisher of Al-Watan (The Nation) newspaper, courageous critic of both the Algerian military governnment and the anti-government armed Islamist groups, and recipient of the Sakharov Prize; Prof. Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid: Qur’anic scholar from Cairo whose interpretation of the Qur’an caused him to be prosecuted by Egyptian Islamists. Labelling him an apostate, they divorced him from his wife, Ibtihal Younes. The couple now lives in The Netherlands.
3. Imam: One who leads Muslims in prayer. Ayatolla: Sign of God, a religious title given to only the most exemplary Shi‘a theologians and religious scholars. Caliph: Successor (to the Prophet). As the Prophet’s spiritual/religious mantle is unique and therefore cannot be inherited, this title has come to mean a ruler. Amir: Leader, mainly in the political and moral sense.
4. The Crusades: A series of wars undertaken by European Christians between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims.
5. Martin Luther (1483-1546): German priest and scholar whose questioning of certain Catholic practices led to the Protestant Reformation. He is a pivotal figure in both Western civilization and Christianity.

Bibliography

• Tariq Ramadan: To Be a European Muslim. The Islamic Foundation: 1999.
• John Esposito. The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? 3d. ed. Oxford Univ. Press: 1999.
• Fatima Mernissi. Women and Islam: An Historical and Theological Enquiry. South Asia Books: 1998.
• Tomaš G. Masaryk: The Ideals of Humanity and How To Work. Ayer: 1970.

The Drive for Ecumenical Unity

First, when speaking of unity, Jesus never specified a date or time period. Most probably he did this in an attempt to limit human weakness and shortsightedness in this field. However, separation and scattering happened anyway. Rather than considering this something undesirable, we should recognize it as a normal result of human diversity and a source of richness for humanity. Human diversity starts with diversity in the white, black, red, and yellow races, followed by new-color races arising from interracial sexual relations between the original races.

According to Teilhard de Chardin,1 the human race is undergoing a process of permanent change, continuous development, and an unstoppable growth toward an ever-higher level of spiritualization in its quest to achieve a clearer and better understanding of the Divine Reality, the Divine Truth. All faith communities can accept that the perennial Reality from which all existing matter originated is also the final Omega-destination of all beings. Only then, after a long period of growth, will humanity and all religions be united in the All of the spiritual Reality.

After centuries of war and conflict, collaboration and unity among nations progressed with the creation of the United Nations (UN), its affiliated institutes, and the International Court at The Hague in The Netherlands. Sometime in the not-too-distant future, we hope that the dream of Baha’ullah2-the creation of a world parliament, a world government, a world currency unit, and a universal language-will be realized. Is it not time for the world’s diverse faith communities to realize a similar union in collaboration?

Second, people are talking of a small ecumenism between Christian faith communities and a great ecumenism between the world’s faith communities. The ecumenism appellation undoubtedly will be greeted with suspicion by non-Christian faith communities due to its Western origin. In line with the growing trend of including non-Christian faith communities in Christian ecumenist encounters, it might be advisable to replace ecumenism with dialogue. Interfaith dialogue then can be used for all interfaith dialogue encounters.

Third, our world is faced with the problems of an escalating gap between rich and poor and the ever-increasing poverty of 20 percent of the world’s population. Although the world’s political, financial, and industrial leaders acknowledge that something should be done, they have not reached any consensus on how to tackle these problems. Faith communities, in cooperation with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), could speed up this process by fulfilling the necessary role of pressing and pushing these leaders to reach some kind of agreement. However, to be effective and have a lasting influence they must be able to collaborate with each other.

After many years of meetings, it is becoming clear to more and more people that drives for unity between the Christian Protestant communities, as well as drives for unity between the Catholic Church and other Christian communities, are not making any real progress. A growing number of people now believe that such unity should be considered as a very long-term goal.

What should be sought now is not unity, but rather a union in collaboration. This seems to be happening due to advances in telecommunication technology, an acquisition of better knowledge and estimation of other cultures, and also the immigration of non-Christian faith communities to traditionally Christian countries. For example, this latter factor has made Islam the second largest faith community in the European Union.

Fourth, to realize such a union in collaboration, the following four attitudes must be present:

A True Interest in the World’s Problems. All interfaith meetings should deal with the suffering of so many of our brothers and sisters on this planet from a position of real concern and compassion. But more than that, they should formulate the sincere desire within themselves to do something about it. Such a global consciousness should be the basic mental attitude from which all faith communities start when working on interfaith dialogue.

The problems of poverty in South America and India, as well as many other countries, cannot be solved in a reasonably short time period by local and even nationally combined efforts. A change for the better in the socioeconomic infrastructures, many of which remain under the control of a small minority of landowners and industrialists who derive great financial benefits from the status quo, will be possible only through political and moral pressure from the outside. This represents a challenge for a United Religions Organization in collaboration with local politicians.3

A Clearly Defined Purpose so That Efficient Solutions Can Be Reached and Implemented. Efficient solutions will be produced only when all faith communities become a “One Voice Forum” having behind it the power of all their adherents. This could become a reality by creating a world religious organization, such as has been proposed by Episcopal Bishop William Swing’s United Religions Initiative (URI), launched in 1995. This body does not seek to unite all religions into one, but to bring them together at the same table so that their voice will be heard and taken seriously by the UN. An important step in this direction was the creation of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva, Switzerland.4 The WCC could become a basis for a world organization if non-Christian faith communities and the Catholic Church were to become members.

In the case of Europe, a more unified European collaboration should be studied to promote communication between European interfaith dialogue organizations. An umbrella organization, something like a European Interfaith Council, is urgently needed, as is a European interfaith magazine, to combine all efforts on a European-wide level.

Giving Priority to the Common Welfare. This involves subordinating personal interests to the interests of the whole, a problem often encountered on the political level. For example, the UN’s activities will remain very limited as long as America gives priority to its own interests. This is also applicable to NGOs and faith communities, for concentrating on their own organizational agendas, instead of on the common welfare of humanity, makes real dialogue and real collaboration difficult. As far as I know, only Japan places the welfare of the whole community above that of the individual in all aspects of life. This is perhaps due to its centuries-old Buddhist and Confucian background. Whatever the reason, this remains a unique world phenomenon that is not recognized or understood sufficiently by the world community.

Adopting a “Go and Learn” Attitude. In other words, we have to move beyond the typical Western attitude of “Go and Teach.” This attitude is characteristic of Christianity and Islam, for adherents of both religions believe in their religion’s superiority and that they have exclusive possession of the whole truth. Unfortunately, such attitudes have resulted in colonization, negating and even persecuting other cultures and religions. What is required today is the attitude of “Go and Learn,” of being interested in and learning about others, of coming to respect their identity and values.

Due to this new attitude, we might integrate some of these values in our own way of life and be enriched as a result. As long as the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations, as well as Islam, do not renounce their claim of exclusive possession of the Truth, the above-mentioned union in collaboration will remain an almost-impossible undertaking. The only way forward is one of accepting and recognizing other faith communities and working to go beyond the differences and similarities to arrive at a union in collaboration. Overall unity should not be the goal

Footnotes

1. Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955): Teilhard aimed at a metaphysic of evolution, holding that it was a process converging toward a final unity that he called the Omega point. He attempted to show that what is of permanent value in traditional philosophical thought can be maintained and even integrated with a modern scientific outlook if one accepts that the tendencies of material things are directed, either wholly or in part, beyond the things themselves toward the production of higher, more complex, more perfectly unified beings…. Teilhard argued that the appearance of man brought an added dimension into the world. This he defines as the birth of reflection: animals know, but man knows that he knows; he has “knowledge to the square.” Another great advance in Teilhard’s scheme of evolution is the socialization of mankind. This is not the triumph of herd instinct but a cultural convergence of humanity toward a single society. Evolution has gone about as far as it can to perfect human beings physically: its next step will be social and spiritual. Teilhard saw such evolution already in progress; through technology, urbanization, and modern communications, more and more links being established between different peoples’ politics, economics, and habits of thought in an apparently geometric progression. (www.britannica.com)
2. Baha’ullah (1817-92): Founder of the Baha’i faith upon his claim to be the manifestation of the unknowable God. He propounded a comprehensive teaching that advocated the unity of all religions and the universal brotherhood of man. Emphasizing social ethics, he eschewed ritual worship and devoted himself to the abolition of racial, class, and religious prejudices. (www.britannica.com)
3. For more information, check out: www.united-religions. org/newsite/index.htm, or contact: United Religions Initiative, PO Box 29242, San Francisco, CA 94129-0242 USA; e-mail: office@uri.org.
4. The World Council of Churches (WCC) is an ecumenical organization founded in 1948 in Amsterdam as “a fellowship of Churches which accept Jesus Christ our Lord as God and Saviour.” The WCC is not a church, nor does it issue orders or directions to the churches. It works for the unity and renewal of the Christian denominations and offers them a forum in which they may work together in the spirit of tolerance and mutual understanding (www.britannica. com). It now has 337 Christian churches as members, mainly Protestant and Eastern Orthodox. The Catholic Church and Southern Baptists are not members.

Scientists restrict the concept of life to the conditions that obtain on or beneath the outer surface of our planet. Therefore, when they have looked for extra-terrestrial life what they have looked for is conditions which are the same as or similar or closely correspondent to the conditions in which life is evident on the surface of earth. But surely, if they had retained a sufficient sense of the absolute wonder of life (and that absolute wonder is an aspect of life’s being a direct manifestation of the Ever-Living) they should not have ruled out forms and conditions of life which are at present beyond their understanding. In their view, the arguments put forward by Said Nursi, a Muslim scholar from Turkey who wrote mostly in the first half of this century, for the existence of angels and other spirit beings may not be worthy of consideration. However, the latest discoveries in deep sea biology may persuade them to review Nursi’s arguments. Said Nursi wrote at the beginnings of I 930s:

Reality and the wisdom [purposiveness] in the existence of the universe require that the heavens should have conscious inhabitants of their own as does the earth. These inhabitants of many different kinds are called angels and spirit beings in the language of religion.

It is true that reality requires the existence of angels and other spirit beings because the earth, although insignificant in size compared with the heavens, is continually being filled with and emptied of conscious beings. This clearly indicates that the heavens… are filled with living beings who are the perfect class of living creatures. These beings are conscious and have perception, and they are the light of existence; they are the angels, who, like the jinn and mankind, are the observers of the universal palace of creation and students of this book of the universe and heralds of their Lord’s kingdom.

The perfection of existence is through life. Moreover, life is the real basis and the light of existence, and consciousness, in turn, is the light of life. Since life and consciousness are so important, and a perfect harmony evidently prevails over the whole creation, and again since the universe displays a firm cohesion, and as this small ever-rotating sphere of ours is full of countless living and intelligent beings, so it is equally certain that those heavenly [realms] should have conscious, living beings particular to themselves. Just as the fish live in water, so those spirit beings may exist in the heat of the sun. Fire does not consume light, rather, light becomes brighter because of fire. We observe that the Eternal Power creates countless living beings from inert, solid substances and transforms the densest matter into subtle living compounds by life. Thus it radiates the light of life everywhere in great abundance and furnishes most things with the light of consciousness.

From this we can conclude that the All-Powerful, All-Wise One would certainly not leave without life and consciousness more refined, subtle forms of mater like light and ether, which are close to and fitting for the spirit; indeed He creates animate and conscious beings in great number from light, darkness, ether, air and even from meanings and words. As He creates numerous species of animals He also creates from such subtle and higher forms of matter numerous different spirit creatures. One kind … are the angels, others are the varieties of spirit beings and jinn. (The Words I, Truestar l993,pp.113-12)

Half a century after Said Nursi wrote this, nearly 300 animal species, almost all of them previously unknown, have been discovered living around hydrothermal vents which form when sea-water leaking through the ocean floor at spreading ridges is heated by the underlying magma and rushes into the cold ocean. Verena Tunniclife writes:

All life requires energy, and nearly all life on earth looks to the sun as the source. But solar energy is not the only kind of energy available on the earth. Consider the energy that drives the movement and eruption of the planet’s crust. When you look at an active volcano, you are witnessing the escape of heat that has been produced by radioactive decay in the earth’s interior and is finally reaching the surface. Why should there not be biological communities associated with the same nuclear energy that moves continents and makes mountains? And why could not whole communities be fuelled by chemical, rather than, solar energy?

… Most of us associate the escape of heat from the interior of the earth with violent events and unstable physical conditions, with extreme high temperatures and the release of toxic gasses-circumstances that are hardly conducive to life. The notion that biological communities might spring up in a geologically active environment seemed fantastic. And until recently, few organisms were known to survive without a direct or indirect way to tap the sun’s energy. But such communities do exist, and they represent one of the most startling discoveries of 20th-century biology. They live in the deep ocean, under conditions that are both severe and variable.

This ‘startling’ discovery of biology contains clues to some other realities, which sciences should consider. The Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace, states that angels are created from light. We read in the Qur’an that God created man from dried earth, from wet clay and, from an extract of clay. According to the Qur’an, man has been made a khalifa on the earth. Khalifa means one who succeeds. Many interpreters of the Qur’an have concluded from this that the jinn once ruled the earth and they were succeeded by men.

Starting from the clues above, it should be possible to do formal studies to determine the worth of conclusions such as these:

God first created pure light (nur) and then light. The process of creation followed a gradual, regular accumulation of identities and/or a saltational sequence of abrupt leaps. Fire followed light and then came water and earth. God spread one existence through another, compounding and interweaving. He also created living beings in every phase of creation appropriate for each phase. While the universe was in a state of pure fire or some other high energy, He created the appropriate life-forms. And when the earth became conducive to life, He created plants, animals and man. He adorned every part and phase of the universe with creatures, among them living ones, that are appropriate for that part and phase.

Finally, just as He created innumerable beings from light, ether, air, fire, water and earth, so too, from every word and deed of man, He forms either his paradise or hell. In other words, as He grows a tree from a tiny seed through particles of earth, air and water, so He will build the other world from the material of this world which He will adapt for the other world during the convulsions of Doomsday. And He will use the words and actions of human beings in preparing the paradise or hell of each.