This is the second of three articles covering the annual National Council of Churches General Assembly in New Orleans. For an overview of political and human rights resolutions adopted by the General Assembly, please click here. For Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s talk, please click here.
A leading American Islamic official has cheered the National Council of Churches (NCC) for its advocacy of a controversial Islamic Center in Lower Manhattan, suggesting that the ecumenical council turned to his organization for instruction on how to respond to skeptics of the project often referred to as the “Ground Zero mosque”. He also proposed that such interfaith partnerships are the natural progress of the ecumenical movement.
“This interfaith relationship, this could not happen in many of the Muslim countries,” said Sayeed M. Sayyid, National Director of Interfaith and Community Alliances for the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). “Not because Islam is uninterested, but because certain experiences over the centuries with other faiths has created a mutual suspicion and an environment of mistrust.”
“We can provide that trust and confidence,” Sayyid said to the ecumenical council’s recent General Assembly in New Orleans. The ISNA official argued that such mistrust was the result of western colonial oppression and “the clash of empires”. He proposed that a unique Islamic American identity was being formed, one that could overcome difficulties that limit Christian/Muslim relations in other countries and lead to greater understanding between Muslims, Christians and Jews.
Advocacy at Ground Zero
“We’ve seen of course during this last year a lot of the spirit of suspicion and accusation — and the fear that comes with it — really bringing out in some ways some of the worst of some of our citizenry and of our co-religionists,” assessed NCC Interfaith Relations Commission Chair Diana Eck in her introduction of Sayyid.
Eck, a United Methodist who heads Harvard University’s Pluralism Project, bemoaned protests of a proposed Murfreesboro, TN mosque and noted flag-holding protesters there chanting “U-S-A” and “Jesus”.
“Alas, these people were the opponents, and that was pretty discouraging,” said Eck, specifically noting with distain protest signs with mock blood that read “Shari’a”.
In her introduction, Eck noted that ISNA has 300 affiliates nationwide and an annual convention that drew 14,000 attendees this year. Sayyid’s daughter is also the first Muslim on the faculty teaching at the United Methodist Claremont School of Theology in California, according to Eck.
During the peak of controversy in August over the Islamic Center in Lower Manhattan, the National Council of Churches came out strongly in defense of the proposed building.
“During [the] Park 51 [Ground Zero mosque] controversy [the] NCC came to ISNA and said ‘you tell us what to do,’” Sayyid said. “[The NCC] set up an event in the National Press Building telling America that we reject this kind of religious bigotry.”
Sayyid touted an evangelical voice at the event – Richard Cizik of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good.
“[Cizik] stood up and said ‘I want to say to my Christian brothers and sisters, shame on you that you are behaving like this towards Islam and Muslims,’” Sayyid recalled. “That one line was repeated again and again throughout the world. The whole conversation was changed in America. It was an expression of Jews and Christians of all different denominations, so today we want to celebrate that — your access in opening up interfaith dialogue is a gift to the whole world.”
A Unique Relationship with Christians?
Sayyid noted that 97 percent of the Islamic centers in the United States had opened in his lifetime, asking if the gathered ecumenical delegates could guess where American Muslims met prior to the construction of their own facilities.
“It was the churches of America that opened their doors to Muslim community in America,” Sayyid answered. “So our birth and growth has been an interfaith phenomenon in that sense. Even now we don’t have enough Islamic Centers.”
Sayyid noted that the NCC’s 2010 General Assembly was cast as a “centennial gathering” to commemorate the 1910 Edinburgh missions conference, considered the birthplace of the modern ecumenical movement.
“In 1910, all but four countries with majority Muslim populations were controlled, colonized or occupied by European powers,” Sayyid said. “What was their religion? Christianity. So that’s why this ecumenical transformation that is taking place, where Christianity is trying to disassociate itself from imperialism, it’s a major development.”
Sayyid also complimented the NCC on a statement passed at the General Assembly entitled “Message on Honoring the Sacredness of Religious Others: Reaffirming our Commitment to Positive Interfaith Relations.”
The NCC statement cast the controversy over the building of Islamic houses of worship in New York and elsewhere as “Islamophobia” that is “set within the larger context of fear and misunderstanding, which enable fear-mongering and reactionary responses.” It also refers to the “sanctity accorded of all houses of worship,” a statement that had earlier drawn opposition from Eastern Orthodox delegates to the General Assembly who argued that they could not honestly regard non-Christian places of worship as sacred.
“It’s wonderful,” the ISNA official pronounced of the interfaith statement. “It redefines Christianity, it will naturally redefine relationship between Islam and Christianity, because just like the Muslim community in American was born as an interfaith Christian-Muslim identity, Islam itself was born as a religion that had its roots — and recognized those roots — in Judaism and Christianity.”
Sayyid argued that within the Islamic tradition there was a concept of religious freedom. He cited Mohammed’s decision to send out a group of early followers because of their difficulty enduring persecution by idol worshippers in Mecca.
“He sent the first batch of Muslims to Ethiopia to a Christian nation to get refuge there so they would get that freedom of religion.”
Sayyid also quoted positive words from the Koran about Christians and Jews.
“Those who attain to faith, as well as those who follow the Jewish faith and the Christians, all those who believe in God and the last Day of Judgment and do righteous deeds shall have their reward with their sustainer and no fear need they have and neither shall they grieve,” Sayyid quoted. “This is what the source of Islam is, that Koran recognizes Judaism and Christianity as genuine, legitimate religions with which there should be relationship and respectable interactions.”
The ISNA official said that in a subsequent “clash of empires” Islam and Christianity lost inclusiveness and “the kind of interchange that was necessary for their growth, development, [and] contribution to the world.”
Sayyid did not mention or attempt to explain later verses in the Koran that call for the death of non-Muslims, verses that some Islamic scholars claim supersede earlier, more tolerant sections of the text.
“That’s why we are here today in America,” Sayyid said of attempts to create an environment for Muslim/Christians dialogue. “We couldn’t dialogue 100 years ago, because dialogue can only be between equals. You couldn’t have dialogue with a billion Muslims who were living under the colonial occupation.”
A Legacy of Mistrust
Sayyid said that even after the colonial era, remnants and relics remained.
“How will these religions be related and how will the new civilizations emerge?” Sayyid asked. “We will have to decide that here, because it is here in this country where we can sit around a table together, with mutual respect and recognition where our rights are well defined and we can talk.”
Later, during the question and answer period, John Paterakis, a delegate from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, questioned Sayyid’s characterization of Christian empires that oppressed Muslim peoples.
“You talked earlier about Christianity as an entity that is decoupling itself from imperialism, and I would respectfully submit that is a gross oversimplification,” Paterakis said. “Certainly in this room there are many Christians, particularly people whose roots are in southeast Europe or the near Middle East, who didn’t really have the opportunity for imperialism.”
The Greek Orthodox delegate attributed this to “a 400-year-long tyranny that was rooted in Islamic culture, more specifically the Ottoman Empire.”
Paterakis said openness around the issue was important in also addressing, the safety of missionaries and relief workers in Islamic-dominated countries.
“I see people who have to wrestle with this reality,” Paterakis said.
“Both [Christian and Muslim] empires did not represent the spirit of the world religions,” Sayyid acknowledged, saying scars had been left on both sides.
No comments yet
Leave a Reply