distracted and interfaith

Between the election and the kitteh quest, I haven’t had much time to surf the muslim blogosphere as of late.  Sorry ’bout that.  We’re going kitteh hunting this weekend at local shelters and rescues, and my internet time will be devoted to surfing petfinder until we find one to adopt inshaAllah.

I do want to mention some goings on in Rome where there’s a Catholic-Muslim forum going on. 

• Catholic-Muslim Forum opens with frank talk at Vatican
• No news is good news at Catholic-Muslim Forum
• Peering through funnels at interfaith problems
• Pace picks up in international interfaith meetings

The Reuters FaithWorld blog is on my daily blogstroll.  If it’s not on yours, it should be.  I’d miss a lot of religion related stories (like the Catholic-Muslim forum) if I didn’t check it periodically.

On a related note, I’ve forsaken my ipod in favor of my little portable radio these last few days, in order to listen to all the election goings on in real time.  I happened to turn it on around 10 this morning and catch part of an interview with Eboo Patel on our local public radio station.  The hour was on the 2008 election and the religion gap, although the portion I heard was q&a from callers, mainly asking about Eboo’s interfaith work. 

The Catholic-Muslim Forum

Here’s the official Vatican press release related to the meeting between muslim scholars and catholic higher ups this last week.  Granted, it doesn’t tell us anything more than what’s been in the news stories, because, well frankly, there’s not much to the release.

There is a bit more at the A Common Word website, in particular, a reflection by Sh. Abdul Hakim Murad.  One can find more of Prof. Murad’s articles, as well as his bio, here.

Pope to host summit with Muslims

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7279412.stm

Pope Benedict XVI will host landmark Catholic-Muslim talks in November to improve ties between the two religions.

The announcement was made in a joint statement after a two-day meeting between senior Vatican and Muslim leaders in Rome.

…

The joint statement said the first Catholic-Muslim summit would be held in Rome on 4-6 November and would involve 24 religious leaders and scholars from each side.

It said the Pope would address the meeting on the themes of “Love of God, Love of Neighbour”, “Theological and Spiritual Foundation” and “Human Dignity and Mutual Respect”.

Catholic and Muslim leaders hope the forum will start a regular official dialogue between the two religions.

Interestingly, the mainstream media doesn’t list who the muslim delegates to the two day talks were.  Only after searching did I find the names from a catholic news source. 

The Muslim scholars visiting the Vatican this week are Ibrahim Kalin, a Turk, from Georgetown University; Abd al-Hakim Murad Winter, a Englishman, from the Shaykh Zayed Divinity School at the University of Cambridge; Sohail Nakhooda, a Jordanian, the editor of Islamica magazine; Yahaya Sergio Yahe Pallavicini, an Italian, the imam at Milan’s al-Wahid mosque; and Aref Ali Nayed, a Libyan, from the University of Cambridge. 

It seems to me that those attending were heavily in the “traditionalist” camp.   While I’m certainly happy that that view is being presented, it is a little discouraging that the muslim view point presented is apparently monolythic, especially when so many muslim camps were represented among the original Common Word signatories.

This next meeting will hopefully be more diverse, inshaAllah.

Professor Aref Ali Nayed, from the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, in Jordan, said: “Who attends the seminar will depend on their diaries. We will ensure that from our side as many regions and sects are represented; who the Catholics send is up to them.

Humanity

Via a Deenport post:

“People are of two kinds: your brethren in faith or your equals in humanity. Be forgiving to them as you wish Allah to be forgiving to you.” - attributed to Imam Ali (ra)

Christians responding to A Common Word

Over 300 Christian leaders responded to the Common Word letter sent out by 138 muslim scholars on Eid.  Official Vatican statements may be forthcoming as well.

Just another statement?

We’ll see.  Printed it out to read on the bus ride home (in between the VA Suhba).  It does have quite a variety of high level shayook as signatures.  Can’t comment on the variety, as I’m not too familiar with most of the top salafi scholars today, but all my favorites are there.

 A Common Word Between Us