Issues run the gamut as international listening teams visit the PC(USA)

Some had speculated that the conversations might focus primarily on the terror attacks of Sept. 2001 and their aftermath — and there certainly were questions about terrorists and suicide bombers and the idea of jihad. But other questions — scribbled on note cards or broached over the lemonade and dessert in church halls and basements, or at even broader interfaith gatherings at mosques and synagogues — were often prompted more by curiousity than by sharp-edged politics. Sometimes they were personal, from people really wanting to know.

Describe for me the way that you pray. Why do you dress the way you dress? How are Muslim children educated in your country? What does your religion teach about violence and peace? What can ordinary people do to achieve reconciliation? How can we move towards one God when we believe different things?
At an Islamic cultural center in Louisville the conversation took on other layers of meaning because there the Muslims who had gathered for Friday afternoon prayer came from many countries. They didn’t need a primer on the teachings of Islam. They wanted to talk about realities around the world, from the relations between Hindus and Muslims in India to a hot discussion about what’s being taught in Islamic religious schools. “We are creations of God, created by the same God,” the imam there, Aly A. Farag, said in welcoming the Christian visitors. “This religion is an open book. There is no hidden ritual, nothing is secret.”

The idea for the interfaith listening teams — a pilot project sponsored by the Worldwide Ministries Division of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program — arose after Sept. 11, 2001. According to Margaret “Peggy” Thomas, the PC(USA)’s interim coordinator for interfaith relations, Victor Makari, a PC(USA) staff member, returned from a trip to the Middle East last fall with a message that a church partner there wanted to come to the United States along with a Muslim from the same country for conversation with American Christians. That germ of an idea created the momentum for more teams to come from more countries. “There were people in other parts of the world who were concerned about us and wanted to talk to us,” Thomas said. “We needed to personalize Islam by seeing what Islam looks like in human beings.”

So teams were assembled in a flurry from nations ranging from Ethiopia to the Philippines. Some rearranging was necessary due to difficulties obtaining visas, but they arrived and were sent out for a marathon of church dinners and question-and-answer sessions in more than 30 presbyteries, from Alabama to Oregon. Most of the American groups got a quick splash of conversation, just enough to give them a glimpse into another country, another reality, another way of life.

For some Presbyterians, this was the first chance they’d ever had to ask questions face-to-face of a Muslim — even though the number of Muslims in the U.S. is about equal to that of Presbyterians, and most American cities and even small towns have Muslim residents. But building relationships across the lines of culture and religion can be difficult. And the questions the Americans were asking showed both the depth of their desire to know more about Islam, and how much they still have to learn.

Here’s are some glimpses into a few of the conversations with two of the interfaith teams — first from India and then from Kenya.

Indians Visit Mid-Kentucky

The team from India consisted of two longtime colleagues from Hyderabad, a city of about 5 million in the south of India. Andreas D’Souza, a Roman Catholic, speaks 15 languages and is fluent in 10, is well-versed in Islam and leads the Henry Martyn Institute, a nonprofit institute which was created initially to train Christian missionaries but which now focuses on interfaith relations and reconciliation. Ismat Lateef Mehdi is a professor of Arabic literature and history who also has worked with All India Radio and in the Indian Cultural Center at India’s embassy in Cairo.

  In the basement of Central church, Louisville, one of the early stops on the tour in Mid-Kentucky Presbytery, Mehdi patiently answered questions from a group of American women who were intensely curious about the lives of Muslim women. Mehdi explained that the customs vary from country to country, but “women have a very high place in Islam” — they are respected and they have rights, for example, to own property or get divorced.

Do Muslim girls go to school, they asked? Yes, she said — in India, education for girls is compulsory.
Can Muslim men have more than one wife? The Koran allows a man to have up to four wives, if certain conditions are met, Mehdi said. He must treat them equally, “for Allah says a man has only one heart,” she said. “I personally think it’s a very good arrangement,” because if a woman’s husband dies, she can become part of another man’s family and she will not be destitute. In Islam, women “are not cheap commodities, they are respected,” Mehdi said.

Why do some Muslim women cover their hair? Mehdi — who wore a sari and twisted her black hair into a neat knot at her neck, but only covered her head when she went to the mosque — said the Koran does not require women to conceal their hair or their faces, but it does encourage them to be modest. The Koran instructs men to “lower your gaze when you see women” and teaches women to “cover your bosom and lower your gown,” so Muslim women typically wear trousers or long skirts that cover their legs, she said. When a woman is dressed modestly and properly, “men know they cannot misbehave with you,” Mehdi said.

After that things shifted from a presentation to a real conversation — because other women in the audience began to offer their thoughts too. A Christian woman — Susan Rhema, from the PC(USA)’s national staff — said she grew up in a Christian community where women routinely covered their hair. Three other Muslim women were present, two of whom wore headscarves, and they explained that, for a Muslim, deciding how to dress can be a very personal decision and can be influenced by culture.

When she covers her hair and her body, a woman with a kente cloth headcovering and a purple robe said, men treat her with respect, and “they can concentrate on who I am and what I am, not what’s on the outside.” She said she’s taught her daughter that “you dress in a certain way, so you don’t draw no thugs.”
A woman from Iran, wearing a green scarf, a long skirt and an elegant yellow blazer, said she thinks it’s good for women to dress discreetly, rather than in short, tight clothes. That way, she said, women are considered important because of who they are, not because of what they wear.

There was also honest talk about the tensions brought about by religion. Mehdi acknowledged that fanatics have sometimes distorted the teachings of Islam — in some countries, Muslim women don’t have nearly the freedom they do in India. D’Souza told of violence perpetrated in the name of religion — such as in a slum in Hyderabad, where religious conflicts have led to rioting between Hindus and Muslims. The Henry Martyn Institute has started a small school there for children from both groups.

And he spoke of the lives lost around the world because of violence, not just in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, but also in Afghanistan, in Israel, in Africa, where “all those people are God’s children” too.

In his remarks, D’Souza, a slim man with an easy smile, acknowledged the differences between Christianity and Islam, but also discussed the similarities — from the belief in one God to the commitment to show kindness to one’s neighbor. D’Souza spoke of things he has learned from Islam that have enriched his own faith. For example, there is the idea that God is both transcendental and, from the Sufi mystics, that “God is very close to you . . . The Koran says God is as close to you as your jugular vein.” He added: “I’m more deeply Christian because of my dialogue with Muslims.”

At the mosque, a Muslim man asked D’Souza to explain about the Christian understanding of the Trinity — and D’Souza laughed gently, saying that “in 40 years, I have never succeeded in explaining the Trinity to anyone,” that it’s a mystery, but “we do not believe in three gods. There is only one God.”

In the Koran, Mehdi explained, Allah is the only God but has 99 names, 99 attributes — among them, God is compassionate, God calls for justice, “He is merciful for all times and his mercy has no limits, it is forever.” When describing the ritual Islamic prayer, Mehdi used language common in Christian worship — bowing before God, offering thanks, asking forgiveness, seeking God’s mercy.

“We are believers in one God,” said Rabbi Joe Rooks Rapport of The Temple in Louisville. “There is only one God for all people and things.”

Cassandra Reichert, who attends Beulah church, Louisville, said she was delighted to participate in the discussions.

“The unity of all faith traditions is something that needs to be celebrated and honored,” Reichert said after lunching with the Indian team. “This is certainly a way to do that, to share a meal, to break bread and biscuits together, to recognize that someone can’t eat green beans and ham together” — Mehdi had politely declined some green beans cooked in the way of the American South and had requested a cup of hot tea (In Kentucky, the choice usually offered, winter or summer, is whether you want your iced tea “sweet” or not.)
“There is absolutely so little understanding in the Christian community, for the average lay person, as to who these people are,” said Carol Harrison, the pastor of Buechel church, Louisville, which co-sponsored one of the forums. “We as Presbyterians are so comfortable, wanting everybody to know us . . . This is an opportunity for my people to know their neighbors, to understand them better,” she said. “Our neighbors are different than we are.”

Kenyans in Ohio Valley

It was easy to spot the Kenyans at the Ohio Valley Presbytery meeting: they were the only black people in the room. At the edge of a lake, in a classic lodge at Camp Pyoca on a steamy fall afternoon, they told part of their story — how Muslims, Hindus and Christians in Kenya, driven to action by the desperation born of AIDS and drought and poverty, began meeting, at first to pray for God’s mercy for their country and, eventually, to listen to the Kenyan people and draft a new constitution for their country.

The government, with a history of corruption and not willing to cede power, resisted. The religious coalition persisted, “for the good of the people,” said Alhaji Yussuf Murigu, the Muslim secretary general of the Kenya Arab Friendship Society.

“For many years we ignored each other,” said Jesse Kamau, a minister who’s moderator of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa. “No one cared about the other. We looked at them as enemies, we looked at them as competitors,” and the feeling was mutual.

“It is a shame that we as people who fear and honor God were never able to be brought together by the word of God,” Kamau said. It took social and economic problems, drought and disease and malnutrition, to bring people from different religious groups into the same room, at first to gather separately in different corners, each praying in their own way.

In an effort to break the emerging unity, some people burned a mosque, then a church was torched in retaliation. But the imams and the Christian leaders spoke out, saying “It was not one of us . . . and we were able to quell the conflict,” Kamau said.

He stood before the presbytery meeting— holding the Koran high in his left hand, the Bible in his right — saying, “We want to work together. This is our world. We haven’t gone to Heaven yet . . . . We don’t want a divided world.”

In an interview, Murigu and Kamau said they’ve been enjoying their travels — by then, they’d been to New York, Iowa, Oregon, Idaho and Indiana, speaking at churches and to local Lions and Kiwanis clubs. They’d been guests at a rodeo in Pendleton, Ore. (“We were entertained by the cowboys and cowgirls,” Kamau said); visited a Native American market and a museum telling the story of the Oregon Trail; and, in Boise, Idaho, met the first Muslim outside of their group. Kamau said a Muslim from Italy whispered in his ear, “Tell the people, tell them to appreciate Muslims.”

In Indiana, June Ramage Rogers, who has worked on the PC(USA) national staff, told Murigu that “by coming here, you break a stereotype immediately” — many Americans think all Muslims are Arab. And they spoke about stereotypes versus reality; that some may say they are Muslim or Christian but don’t actually live out their faith; that Americans can grasp the distinctions between different Christian denominations, but have a hard time understanding that Muslims from different countries do not always share the same views — on the treatment of women, for example.

When Muslims talk about women, “you hear people saying what they want to say, not what is in here,” Murigu said, holding up his copy of the Koran. “Allah does not change. But when you give people power, they translate things the way they want.”

As people, Kamau and Murigu are, like their religions, both similar and distinct: both are Kenyans and both faith-filled. Kamau is shorter, with an exuberant grin, dressed in pants and checked short-sleeved shirt; Murigu is tall and massive, wearing a long flowing beige robe, more soft-spoken in public, his smile a little shy. Away from the microphone, they relax and are comfortable with each other, laughing easily, sometimes finishing each other’s sentences.

They are clearly not ready for the conversation to end.