Across the country, in the months following 9/11, other events took place; although they were of a different scale, they were equally evil. The murders of Muslims or people identified as Muslims, the willful destruction of Muslim-owned property, and the bullying and mistreatment of people with “Muslim-sounding” names occurred frequently in the guise of retaliation or justice. This atmosphere of intolerance did not sit well with me. I knew that my neighbors who were Muslim were not evil people, and I felt that a faith which had birthed so much beauty over its history could not be solely evil. My own faith was one of the many Christian traditions born in the spiritual renewal which swept through the United States in this nation’s early days. Many of these early Christians had been persecuted by their neighbors due to intolerance and fear born of ignorance; this element within my family’s history helped me to recognize the injustice of what was occurring.

I am a Christian minister, I am an artist, and I am an educator. My responsibility to my faith is to seek God and His goodness wherever they might be found; my drive as an artist is to recognize and share the beauties of God’s creation wherever they may be; and my goal as an educator is to help open minds so they may be receptive to knowledge and the inspiration of God’s love, however it manifests. After 9/11, I was determined to learn about Islam – not from the media-driven mindset of sensationalism and sound-bites, but with an eye open to truth and a mind open to the promptings of the Spirit, and to give the faith the same respect I felt my own beliefs deserve. I met with Muslims and asked them what they believed, and I read the source documents of the faith, the Holy Qur’an and the Hadith. Those who responded to my questions were scholars, imams, sheikhs, and laity from all over the world, from multiple schools of Islamic thought and practice. From these many, many points of view a picture of Islam as a faith and Muslims as a people emerged. This picture shook me profoundly – there was a great deal more we shared than I had thought possible.

Muslims love their children. Muslims believe in God – the same God in which I believe (in Mark 15:34, in the New Testament, Jesus called God “Eloi,” the same word in Aramaic as “Allah”). Muslims love education, finding truth, and caring for their neighbors. The list could go on and on. There was nothing I could find in the Qur’an which said anything about the supposed glories of terrorism; in fact it was plain that such violence angers our Creator more profoundly than almost any other evil. How then could I share this knowledge with those around me? Shortly after asking this question, I happened upon the tradition of the 99 Most Beautiful Names of God, or Asma al-Husna, and I recognized this was not a coincidence. The answer was to begin building and showing glass sculptures to explore the wisdom and meaning of each of the 99 Names from the point of view of a Christian.

The 99 Names Project is meant primarily to provide an excuse for dialog; each work is the result of prayerful research bringing together Muslim views of each Name with the points of convergence I see in my own Christian faith. As such, the initial dialog begins with me. I read references to the Names in the Qur’an as well as in the writings of scholars like Rumi. I visit Muslim scholars, ecclesiastical leaders, and laity, and ask them about the Names. I then cross-reference what I learn with what I find in the Bible. Then, I prayerfully consider what motifs and designs in Islamic artistic tradition best correspond with what I have discovered; develop new images and patterns emulating traditional works; and build up shapes with the sculptures to communicate this whole process of learning. One of the first things I discovered is that unlike in my own Christian tradition, figurative work having to do with the Deity is entirely inappropriate in Islamic tradition, so the works are abstract and non-representational.

There are three elements which consistently return in the works. The most visible is geometry: all truth comes from the same Source regardless of the site of its discovery or the language of its transmission. It seemed the best way to symbolize this is through the purity of mathematics and its material manifestation. Another primary element is architectural structure. One truth shared between my Christian faith and that of my Muslim brothers is the honor and responsibility of building the kingdom of God on earth, and the earliest Muslim buildings were shared in peace by the believers of many faiths. The third element is a bookbinding sensibility. The widespread use of art in books is perhaps the most important element shared among my sculptures because it symbolizes the vital role of the Qur’an. In my Christian faith, I recognize Jesus as the Word of God made flesh and he is the bridge connecting me to God; in Islam, the Word of God is made legible, and the miraculous bridge uniting God and man can be read every day.

Building the Name Forgiving (Al-Ghaffar) is a good example of the overall process. The shape was built as a softened cube and doors were mounted on each surface, perpetually pointing inward. The design elements were drawn from Ottoman history, one of the most pluralist and inclusive societies of medieval times. The floor of the sculpture is etched and painted with the traditional 8-pointed star and cross pattern known as “Compassionate Breath,” and a cup of white liquid is in the center. I had considered several colors for the liquid, including clear and gold, but felt prompted to use white.

At the first display of the finished sculpture, a Turkish man complimented me on the work and asked why I had placed milk in the center of the welcoming doors. I explained I had no idea, but felt compelled by something outside myself. He explained that the cup was filled with the color of the rivers of heaven, and felt the sculpture was just right. The ongoing experience of this project is a dance between what I am learning about Muslims and the nudges or promptings I receive; these are my heartfelt responses to the Divine Names of God, built from a place of reverence and respect for those I now know are my spiritual siblings, fellow children of father Abraham. I may have no idea why the nudge or prompt to action comes, but experiences like this one show me how important it is to listen to that small voice.

When this project started, I was given counsel by many of the Muslims I interviewed to take my time and open my heart to Divine guidance. It has taken 3 years to build the first 25 sculptures, and I have documented these in a book, 99 Names: 1 to 25 (A Christian’s Exploration of the Names of God from the Qur’an in Glass). There has been some negative feedback, including a very small minority of Muslims who felt it was inappropriate for a non-Muslim to examine Muslim themes and a few Christians concerned I was losing my perspective as a Christian. However, something remarkable happened. Throughout this process, I have learned about many points of agreement and separation in our respective faiths. I have rejoiced in our similarities and I respect our differences – and rather than diluting my Christian beliefs, my faith has expanded, grown, and deepened. As Fethullah Gülen teaches, something holy happens through the process of education, and such an exercise can only result in the growth of those involved.

These sculptures are meant to show our many points of convergence and understanding, and to celebrate opportunities for learning, dialog, and friendship. Regardless of the faith we claim or how we pronounce the Name of our Creator, we are all, first and foremost, human and His creations. God is Beautiful and loves beauty, and I pray He finds this offering acceptable.

99 Names: 1 to 25
A Christian’s Exploration of the Names of God from the Qur’an in Glass
2013
978-1490510750
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

In our increasingly diverse societies, we interact with people of different faiths. At times, this poses a great challenge: something deeply sacred and true for one faith might be in stark contrast with what is true in another religious tradition. How can we share our values in such a way that the true messages of our different faiths benefit people from other religious traditions? Interfaith dialog is a means for achieving this greater goal by persons of different faiths meeting to have a conversation. But dialog is not debate. notes Leonard Swindler. In dialogue, each must listen to the other as openly and sympathetically as s/he can in an attempt to understand the other’s position as precisely and, as it were, as much from within, as possible. Such an attitude automatically includes the assumption that at any point we might find the partner’s position so persuasive that we would have to change. There is a need to recognize that differences do exist and the objective is not to correct but to hear and listen to the other side.

Religion is usually cited as the cause of or at least a factor to conflict around the world. Drawing upon the experiences of the contributors, the goal of Interfaith Dialogue and Peacebuilding is to identify the ways in which we can engage in productive interfaith dialogue. Rabbi Arthur Schneier, one of the contributors of the book, points out that religion is never the real cause of conflict within or between societies, but it is often identified as an excuse for other causes such as ethnicity, economic disparities, and regional differences. The main assertion of the book is that interfaith dialogue can be used as an effective tool to advance peace building around the world.

Based on his experience and studies on conflict resolution, Professor Mohammed Abu-Nimer identifies four phases of development in an effective experiment of interfaith dialogue. He suggests that the earlier encounters should focus on individual and group similarities in theologies and scriptures. One example could be to jointly study the sacred texts of each religion. It must be remembered that the goal for these studies is not debate or conversions. Professor Marc Gopin notes that these shared studies should yield deeper bonds through invitations to homes and meetings with families. The second phase is to deepen the relationship through joint prayers that are not contradictory to the other faith and by participating in the other faith’s rituals. Having established trust and an understanding of the other faith, the third phase is to discover and confirm differences in religious values and faith practices. The final step should be exploring the ways in which messages of different faiths can benefit people from other religious traditions in the same community.

Articles in the book encourage us to re-think elements within our religious traditions that call on us to engage in interfaith dialog. It encourages us to breakdown stereotypes we have of the other faiths and reflect critically on the practices of our co-religionists. Contributors’ experiences show that in order to be effective, talks should be accompanied by deeds. As Professor Diana Eck affirms One world cannot be built on the foundation of competition and polarization between the superpowers. One world cannot be built on the foundation of science, technology and the media. One world cannot be built on Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Sikh triumphalism. One world cannot be built on the foundation of fear and suspicion….Laying the foundations of one world is the most important task of our time. These foundations are not negotiated statements and agreements. These foundations are, rather, in the stockpiling of trust through dialog and the creation of relationships that can sustain both agreements and disagreements.