Bridge Building with Our Muslim Neighbors

Bridge Building with Our Muslim Neighbors

Recently, while shopping in a Maadi pharmacy, in which the pharmacist was wearing a hijab, I saw a sign below the counter which read, “BOYCOTT ISLAM BASHERS.” It was so faded and partly torn that it probably dated from the time of the first publishing of the Danish cartoons, which have just been re-printed. But my seeing this sign was after I had read a two full page article in Al Ahram Weekly, 6^th to 12^th March, by Franklin Lamb about Bridgette Gabriel, a lady from southern Lebanon, now a U.S. citizen, who is preaching about Islamofacism, which she terms the No.1 enemy of the West. She has a lot of backers, especially Christian Zionists. She’s Islamophobic to the N^th degree. She borders on propagating hate against all Muslims and all Arabs, not just the few who have committed crimes. She feeds into the xenophobia and genuine fears that Americans have had since 9/11. It goes against everything that a few people here in Egypt are doing to build bridges between Christians and Muslims, by learning of, and from, one another; dialoguing, not competitively, but amicably, one trying to understand the other, so to defuse the anger that has been building up as a reaction to things such as the cartoons and Western intervention in Arab lands. Actually, I believe that this anger is political; religion is just the excuse.

One example of bridge building has been the showing of movies on the life of the prophet, as a study on Islam at St. John the Baptist, Maadi, under the guidance of our rector, Paul-Gordon Chandler. I never realized that before Mohammed, one’s only hope to survive in Mecca was to ally oneself to a vicious thug who would protect you, as in gang warfare, and that there were numerous such gangs with loyalty to their own ‘god,’ all fighting for the same turf. He unified them all under one God, Allah. He was a man of peculiar greatness. I also learned from a study of the Coptic church at St. John’s, given by Jos Strengholdt, deacon at St. John’s, that the expansion of the Arabs from Arabia into Syria, Palestine, Egypt and North Africa, was not so much to propel Islam, but they were typical raids of Bedouin for the sake of booty. Land was most certainly taken by the sword, and the Byzantine armies did resist, but they had been so weakened by their wars against the Persians, that these new territories were fruit ready to be picked. Egyptian Christians were indifferent to the newcomers, but they were given a reprieve from persecution by the church of Byzantium. So much Christians loved one another!

Another bridge builder here is Henrik Lindberg Hansen, a student of theology who is leading dialogue between Muslims and Christians once a month. In January we attended one on the subject of Grace. I learned that Muslims and Christians have similar views on God’s grace; they differ only in how it’s attained. That we didn’t delve into. The evening confirmed my conviction, attained by friendships with many Muslims over several years; that they are just like us.

A third bridge is Dr. Cornelis and Sawsan Hulsman; they’re a husband and wife team. He’s a sociologist and journalist by training and profession, with a life long interest in the Arab world, and has been studying Egyptian Christianity since 1976. As a family they moved back to Cairo from Holland in 1994, when they established an institute for Arab-West understanding, now the Arab West Report. The mission of the A.W.R is to build bridges. They have both Muslims and Christians working together, and have built up a large data base which is available from their web site, http://www.arabwestreport.info/. It’s an excellent source of information on what is really happening here. Much of what we see in the media is either exaggerated or just plain untrue.

A fourth bridge is the way by which we conduct ourselves with Muslims. A smile and just a few words like essalamu aleikum (peace be with you) or sabah el khare (good morning), and, of course, Minfadlak, (please) or Minfadlik to a lady and Shukran (thank-you) (nearly all the words I know in Arabic) do wonders to convey good will and to establish understanding. I would venture to say that we see many more smiles here than we do in Canada. I don’t think it’s just the sunnier and warmer climate; it’s something deep down inside the soul of Arabs.

However, it’s not only the cartoons and the Bridgette Gabriels who are obstacles to bridge building, but us. We bash Muslims by asserting that they’re going to hell. As a re-formed evangelical I do believe that Jesus is the way to God, (not just a way), and indeed the only way, but he is the way by which we all reach God, Muslim and Christian alike. To claim that we only are ‘saved’ is actually an offence, a stumbling block, to the Gospel, as it somehow conveys that we save ourselves; that the finished work of Christ, his death and resurrection, is not the only foundation of our salvation. We need to do our little bit too; believe in Jesus. But what of those who don’t, or won’t? As in Jesus’ day there are still detractors, some of whom we should be wary, who reject outright what God has done for them. But God doesn’t reject them; nor should we, no matter how different or how scary they may look. They may be sheep who don’t yet know their shepherd, but they’re still his sheep. We are all tarred with the same brush, Sin, but we have all been washed in Jesus’ blood. This may not be very theologically correct, but if we’re to imitate Jesus I suggest we discard our theological straitjackets. That is why I now try to build bridges to my Muslim neighbors, as to everybody else, by considering them brothers and sisters, in Christ.