Religious leaders seek common ground

The future of the world depends on peace between Christians and Muslims, Islamic scholars told the pope last October.In a letter addressed to Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders, nearly 140 prominent Muslim scholars said that finding common ground between the world's two biggest religions was not "simply a matter for polite ecumenical dialogue."The letter, entitled "A Common Word between Us and You," said, "Muslims and Christians together make up well over half of the world's population. Without peace and justice between these two religious communities, there can be no meaningful peace in the world."The Rev. Charles Werth, pastor at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 1021 Spaight St., noted the letter while introducing five panelists- four local Muslims and a Lutheran pastor from Montreal-during a forum Sunday afternoon as part of two days of discussion and dialogue at the church on the topic of Islam and Christianity. "It is a great honor for us to welcome our Muslim friends and be able to listen to them discuss their faith and for us to be able to share with them a little bit about our faith in the spirit of hospitality, which is a central tenet of our faith and Islam, too," said the Rev. Joshua Hollmann of Ascension Lutheran Church in Montreal."We believe in one God. We believe that God has spoken to his prophets. We both promote social justice, working together for the poor and less fortunate in our society, and this is something that we look forward to working on together," Hollmann said after the event.Rohany Nayan, the principal at Madinah Academy in Madison, said there are two principles that people of faith must follow: "We must always agree to disagree agreeably" and "be kind in our word and our deed."Nayan, who is originally from Malaysia and moved to Madison 2 years ago when her husband got a job at the UW, called Sunday's dialogue a good start."I would like for everybody to come together, to work together for a common purpose," she said. "I wish we would concentrate on what we have in common instead of our differences. Problems come when we concentrate too much on our differences instead of our similarities."Bayram Rahimguliyev, a UW graduate student from Turkmenistan, quoted the prophet Mohammed, who said, "No Arab has any superiority over a non-Arab, nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over an Arab. Nor does a white man have any superiority over a black man, or the black man any superiority over the white man. You are all the children of Adam and Adam was created from clay."Turgay Ayer, a UW graduate student who is from Turkey, said the panelists noticed they had even more in common than they expected."The motivation of this panel was to convey the message that we as Christians and Muslims are children of Adam and servants of God and we can sit at the same table and express our ideas and beliefs, not necessarily aiming at affecting each other but just exchanging messages and ideas in a peaceful environment," he said."We as believers in different religions live peacefully. The natural way is to live in peace. This message itself is enough," Ayer said.Mustafa Mustafa, who teaches Arabic at the UW, said that Christianity and Islam are really the same religion.
"Mohammed said, 'I have come to complete the message. It's from all of us,' " he said.Werth, who did not sit on the panel, said that the panelists opened some doors for continued conversation. He said he spoke to the panelists afterward and they mentioned that they would like to continue the dialogue."We've found enough areas of common concern-for the poor and other social needs-so that we can explore ways to work together and I find that exciting," he said.
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/271957
As in the days of Noah.....