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1. The 11 September terrorist attacks

On 11 September of last year, one of Turkey’s leading Muslim intellectuals, Fethullah Gulen, learned within hours of the suicide attack against the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.  When it became clear that the attack was probably the work of an extremist group of Muslims, Mr. Fethullah Gulen, who was in the United States for medical treatment, immediately sat down and wrote a public statement in which he condemned the attacks as a violation of the teaching of Islam.  As a religion of peace, he stated, Islam must never be used to justify the murder of innocent people.  He called on Muslims around the world to strongly renounce the use of violence in the name of Islam.

This public statement, issued within 24 hours of the attack, was the first clear Muslim response to the terrorism, but in the weeks and months that followed, virtually every Muslim organization, at both the international and national levels, unequivocally condemned the attacks as “a violation of Islamic teaching,” as “a crime against humanity” and denounced the terrorists as fanatics “who hijacked Islam for their cause,” a “disgrace” to the Islamic community, and “erroneous in their interpretation of Islamic teaching.”  Many of these Muslim organizations turned to individual Christians and to Church organizations, to express their condolences to the families of the victims, to voice their shame that such a crime had been perpetrated in the name of the Islamic faith, and to ask that Christians and Muslims work together to prevent further wars and violence.

Thus, the first “recent event” that has affected Christian-Muslim relations is the suicide attacks on 11 September.  Given the fact that the attacks were carried out by a group of Muslims against a predominantly Christian nation, grounds were laid for anger, suspicion, and the reinforcement of prejudice.  The almost 3 million-strong American Muslim community, who as far as is known, were completely innocent of the attacks and their planning, feared reprisals and tried to keep a low profile.  They tried, as much as possible, to stay off the streets, kept their children home from school, and avoided taking airplanes or international travel.  They remembered how after the bombing of a government building in Oklahoma some years earlier, angry citizens spontaneously blamed and harassed Muslims, although the bombing turned out to have been done by a right-wing extremist American group.

To their credit, after last year’s 11 September incident, most Americans refrained from any direct attacks against Muslims.  There were a few bad incidents, such as that of an unbalanced person who killed a turbaned Sikh whom he mistook to be a follower of Islam.  But both political and religious leaders took to the television almost immediately after the attack to urge people not to blame all Muslims and not to take reprisals before they knew the facts.  The public displays of outrage by Muslim leaders in the U.S., their messages of sympathy for the families of victims, to the point of donating blood, food and clothing to the survivors, convinced many Americans that Islam was not the enemy, but rather a small group of religious extremists.  In some cases, American Muslims received expressions of support and offers of protection from their Christian and Jewish friends.  In one instance when a Muslim schoolgirl was taunted by some students for wearing a veil, all her non-Muslim female classmates appeared in school the next day wearing veils in an unspoken message of support.

2. The War on Terrorism

The second event to affect Christian-Muslim relations was the War on Terrorism proclaimed and carried out by the American government.  This reaction of the American government, with the widespread support of the American populace, must be treated as a distinct development from that of the 11 September attacks.  It was neither the inevitable response to the attacks nor the only response which could have been given.  Conceivably, the government could have followed the line of international law and concentrated mainly on apprehending and trying in court cases all those involved, but given the emotional atmosphere in the weeks following the destruction of the Twin Towers, perhaps that was too much to hope for.

Afghanistan was quickly targeted for reprisals.  Some pointed out that the known terrorists were all Arabs - 15 out of 19 were citizens of Saudi Arabia - as was the presumed mastermind, Osama bin Laden, and that, as far as was known, no Asian Muslims and no Afghanis were involved in the attacks.  But the Taleban government was highly unpopular in many countries, including Muslim states (it was recognized only by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, both of which quickly withdrew their recognition of the Taleban) and targeted for refusing to hand over bin Laden.

A few Christians, myself included, questioned the morality of bombing an entire population of innocent civilians and causing over two million persons to flee their homes and take refuge in the desert because of objections, no matter how justified, to a handful of government leaders.  One could go farther and question the morality of air attacks against any population too poor to have an adequate air defense system.  At the beginning of the bombing, President Bush stated that the purpose of the bombing was not to topple the Taleban government, but solely to apprehend Osama bin Laden.  However, as the American military was highly successful, with the support of the northern warlords, in achieving the first objective but totally unsuccessful in the second, the goal was redefined and when the Taleban fell, the campaign was declared a success.  The concern of some Christians and many Muslims, however, was not with which unrepresentative government ruled Afghanistan, but the fate of housewives, children, breadwinners - in short, with ordinary Afghan citizens, who were the primary victims of the air and ground attacks.

New actions in the War on Terrorism raised other issues that troubled Christian-Muslim relations.  Arab-Americans were arrested as material witnesses, denied bail and legal representation, and the charges against them kept secret.  Highly respected Islamic institutions in America like the International Islamic Institute of Technology (IIIT) were subjected to search without warrants, their offices and equipment destroyed, and documents such as student records confiscated.  The treatment of Afghani prisoners of war, in which prisoners were transported, blindfolded and shackled, halfway across the world to Guantanamo, Cuba, appear to violate international standards and agreements.  The American Civil Liberties Union, America’s leading civil rights organization, has taken up the case of Muslim citizens and Islamic institutions and several judges have already decided in their favor.

Still more disturbing are the repeated claims that the American government has plans to broaden its war to include other nations, beginning with an attack on Iraq.  The evidence presented for any connection between the Iraqi government and Al-Qa’ida is tenuous at best, particularly as experts hold that cooperation between the secular and socialist government of Iraq and the Islamic extremists of Al-Qa’ida begs credibility.  The plight of the Iraqi people, subjected to brutal bombing during the Gulf War, then an 11-year international boycott that resulted in the malnutrition and death of the weakest, and now fearing the specter of another war, all in response to the actions of a government they never chose is another topic for Christian-Muslim discussion.

It is in the context of a broadened war against terrorism that the balikatan presence of American troops in the southern Philippines must be understood, as well as threats against Sudan, Somalia, Malaysia, and Indonesia.  All of this impacts Christian-Muslim relations because it seems to many Muslims that the War against Terrorism is actually a War against Islam.

3. Spinoffs of the War against Terrorism

It was predicted by shrewd analysts that other nations would be likely to take advantage of America’s War against Terrorism to launch renewed attacks against dissident movements in their own country, and this has been the case.  Russia renewed its efforts to put down the independence struggle of Chechnya as part of the international war against terrorists.  India  increased its operations in Kashmir on the same grounds.  However, the nation that responded with greatest enthusiasm to the call to wage war on terrorism was Israel.  The invasion of Palestinian territory, the destruction of Palestinian Authority Ministries of Health and Education, the virtual house arrest of Chairman Arafat, and the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem were all justified on the grounds of combating terrorism.

In all this, I hope that I will not be misunderstood.  If terrorism can be defined as politically motivated attacks on innocent civilians, the insurgents in the latest Palestinian intifada, as well as those of Chechnya and Kashmir, have also engaged in terrorism, particularly by way of  suicide bombings of markets, buses, and busy thoroughfares.  Of the over 200 Palestinians who took refuge in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, perhaps 30 entered the church armed, which is never acceptable when taking sanctuary.  However, the statistics show that the death toll among Palestinian civilians that resulted from Israeli rockets, tanks and bullets is 4-5 times that of Israelis killed in suicide bombings.  “State-sponsored terrorism,” a phrase created by American policy-makers to justify sanctions against various Arab governments, would seem to apply much more clearly to recent Israeli actions in Palestinian territory.  If Israel claims to be waging a war against terrorism, Palestinians would seem to have even greater reason to claim to be waging war against Israeli state-sponsored terrorism.

4. Efforts at dialogue and peace

Such are the recent events that affect Muslim-Christian relations and form the talking points of dialogue as the two religious communities seek to avoid further bloodshed and build a sound peace.  In the months since the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers, many new initiatives have been undertaken by both Christians and Muslims to sit together and study the geopolitical situation and explore paths to peace.  Muslims have come to realize that they have not communicated well the nature of Islam as a religion of peace.  I think that the peaceful nature of Islam was so obvious to them that they felt that there was no need for explanation.

For their part, Christians are beginning to see the need to distinguish between the teaching and way of life of true Christianity and the baggage of Western civilization, which includes many dubious elements ranging from Johnnie Walker whiskey to MTV, discotheques, and the geopolitical agenda of “Christian” nations, that often passes as part of Christendom.  I think that the difference between Christian faith and the trappings of modern civilization was equally self-evident to Christians, so that they did not often give adequate effort to distinguish between them.

One of the big problems that both sides face is the burden of history that each bears.  Christian imagination has been formed by images of dangerous Moros, smugglers and pirates, harems and dissolute oil sheikhs.  The Muslim image of the Christian goes back to events of the Crusades, reinforced in more recent times by the ravages of colonial domination and post-colonial interference.  Each group can draw up a long list of grievances against the other, until one wonders whether any space for mutual acceptance and reconciliation exists.

Prejudices and suspicion cannot be overcome solely through books and lectures.  Christians and Muslims have to meet, to explain their concerns and hopes for the future, to try to listen with open hearts to what the other is seeking to express.  In short, they have to try to understand each other as believers in God who seek to do God’s will in all things.  This is the task of dialogue.

If it is not to be carried on in an ivory tower, dialogue must treat the real issues that disturb people.  Some might define religiously inspired terrorism as the key issue.  Others might say that it is the lack of social justice throughout the world, the gap between the rich and the poor.  For others it is human rights and freedom of religion that is the key issue.  Still others might define the problem as one of how to live as conscientious believers in a world in which God and God’s will is marginal to economic, social, and political decision-making.  However the issues are defined, it is clear that they are bigger than any one religious community or any one nation, and cannot be adequately faced by any group working in isolation from others.

We must also move beyond seeing the central problem in narrow terms as being one of Christian-Muslim tensions.  Such would not serve to explain the Buddhist-Hindu war in Sri Lanka, inter-tribal conflicts in Africa, the international debt crisis, class warfare in Latin America, problems of population control and bioethics, the globalization of culture and economy, the role of women in society, and the breakdown of traditional family structures.  These are merely some examples of the many issues that need to be included on the agenda of interreligious dialogue, precisely because they are bigger than the concern of any one group and require the cooperation of all to resolve.  On many of these issues, Christians, Muslims and other believers will find themselves in agreement, while on others they will have to challenge each another from the perspective of their respective faiths.

5. Christian-Muslim encounters since 11 September

The number of initiatives for interreligious dialogue since the dramatic and tragic events of 11 September has multiplied to the point where our office cannot cope with all the invitations.  For every invitation we accept, there is another we have to refuse.  I have heard the same from all my colleagues in the Vatican, at universities, and those in Muslim organizations.  As I hope has become clear from the first part of my presentation, we have plenty to talk about, but we lack a sufficient number of Muslims and Christians who are prepared, by academic study or through personal experience, to address these questions.

From among the many initiatives about which I could speak, I have chosen the following as typical of the efforts of Muslims and Christians to address the issues facing the two communities in the period since 11 September.  I have already mentioned some of the joint responses to the tragedy taken by Christians and Muslims in the U.S.A.  In the following examples, I hope to give an idea of how members of the two faiths in various parts of the world have responded to these events.

Arab Muslims and Christians (Cairo)

Islam and the Dialogue of Civilizations (Riyadh)

An Asian response (AMAN)

A Turkish response (Australia)

A European response (Sarajevo)

6. Conclusion

I am convinced that interreligious dialogue is an idea whose time has come.  If we are to move beyond the burdens of history to build a more human, God-centered world characterized by peace, harmony and respect for others, we can only achieve this through dialogue and cooperation.  Let us not delude ourselves.  Such a utopian vision will not become a full reality until the Last Day, but Christians and Muslims are called to offer hope to our world, to be people who work to build God’s reign on earth without expecting to see results in our lifetime.  If our efforts are sincere, persistent and faith-filled, God will produce the results in God’s own time.