To an Exhibit with my Friend the Imam

After prayers on a recent Friday my friend Dr. Ahmad Salah, Imam for Brigham Young University, invited me to go with him through the new exhibit Beauty and Belief:  Crossing Bridges with the Arts of Islamic Culture at the BYU Museum of Art.  For several years, Dr. Sabiha Al-Khemir, Founding Director of the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, has been planning and assembling this astounding exhibit containing 250 pieces from 50 collections around the world.  Dr. Salah and I have known each other since we spoke at the beginning of the 99 Names project; he’s a civil engineer from Egypt, working here in Utah, and has been the Imam for BYU’s Muslim congregation for several years.  A year and a half ago, he presented with me for an exhibit of the 99 Names project at Orem Public Library, and he wanted to visit with me while walking through the fruition of Dr. Khemir‘s work.

While visiting with Imam Ahmad, we took in the many works, never made any smart-alecky comments about other visitors, and shared insights from our different perspectives.  Two items were particularly intriguing.  One was a bronze griffin:

And the other was a page from an account of the Prophet Mohammed‘s miraculous Night Journey:These, surprisingly to me, had quite a bit to do with each other.

The Griffin is known as the Pisa Griffin, and comes from a spire of Pisa Cathedral in Italy.  During renovations, it was noted that this griffin which had adorned the church for generations had markings not typically associated with traditional Christian typology; with further study, it was discovered to have been built by Muslim artisans in Al-Andalus.  Ahmad shared with me that, for many Muslims raised in Cairo, griffins have a special meaning.  For one, the fantastical creature by itself is a witness of Divine creativity–since God is Infinite and the Creator of All, whenever an artist envisions an amazing creature he or she is also bearing witness to the Divine might; how could the artist think of such a thing unless the Creator’s majesty has already encompassed it?  So, the more inventive the artist’s creations, the louder the witness to his or her own Creator.  The second meaning has to do with Mohammed’s miraculous experience of the Heavenly Realms.

During Mohammed’s Night Journey, he left Earth from the stone in the center of the Dome of the Rock.  His escort and means of transport was a miraculous being, a horse-shaped angel named Buraq.  This marvelous creature showed Mohammed the seven levels of Paradise, and gave witness to the fate of those who live righteous lives, fully submissive to the Divine Will.  Although figurative work is common in Islamic art and permitted in applications outside of the actual worship space, Mohammed himself refused to have his likeness painted–he was afraid that future veneration of his image could become idolatry.  For many Muslims around the world, naturalistic rendering of holy figures or beings feels inappropriate for related reasons.  This image of the Night Journey is not to be seen as an illustration, then, but as a visual allegory to remind us of those miraculous, marvelous events so long ago.  For many Muslims growing up in Cairo, many of whom feel uncomfortable with a naturalistic image of Buraq, the griffin became an allegorical symbol both for this angelic servant of the Divine, and for the promises of Paradise to which her presence alludes.

When Ahmad shared all this with me, we started talking about the irony of the Islamic griffin on top of a Catholic cathedral, then it dawned on us this really wasn’t ironic at all.  How fitting a symbol of heaven would be found at the peak of such a holy site?  It felt to us, the Christian and Muslim standing together looking at this beautiful work, that this one thing symbolized the promise for the entire exhibit–crossing bridges of understanding and meeting each other as friends.

(Note:  Although – contrary to Western misconception – the Qur’an does not prohibit figurative art per se, many Muslims, including my friend Ahmad, feel uncomfortable with figural representation of the Prophet Mohammed and the other prophets of Biblical and Qur’anic record.  This is due more to a fear that figural depiction of such remarkable and noteworthy people may become confused with iconography or the sin of idolatry, than a blanket prohibition of all figural work.)

Pacifica, Dr. Harrington, and Dinner

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Images courtesy of Livin’ the Bigg Life and Hawkinson Photography

Pacifica Institute Utah, a Turkish-American bridge-building and interfaith organization, invited Dr. James C. Harrington of the University of Texas and Founder of the Texas Civil Rights Project, to speak about service, free speech, and his book on Fethullah Gulen.  He is a law professor adept at communicating with all sorts (which means, of course, that we could all understand him whether or not we had legal backgrounds), and wrote a book about Fethullah Gulen and the Hizmet (or selfless service) movement in Turkey; he said that as a Catholic, he was pleasantly surprised at how much he had in common with Imam Gulen, and how much is shared between the ideals of Christianity and Islam.  Dr. Harrington is intelligent, charming, and humorous; he is also giving of his time and very personable.  After his wonderful presentation, which included quite a bit about how we can apply principles of selfless service in our American neighborhoods, Pacifica gave us all another wonderful dinner, and Dr. Harrington took some time to visit with me.  For someone whose hobby is rooting out despotism on every level, it was cool to speak with him as a regular guy.  A gentleman from the Salt Lake Examiner, Shad Engkilterra, wrote about Dr. Harrington’s presentation here and here.

Coskun Kariparduc, President of Pacifica Utah, also invited me to share some sculptures from the 99 Names project; I picked some that I felt supported Dr. Harrington’s presentation:  Guardian, Victorious, Shaper of Beauty, Giver of All, and Opener.  Thankfully, everyone agreed they seemed to fit.  After dinner, and much to our surprise, both Dr. Harrington and I were presented with awards of recognition for our work–he for his book and ongoing civil rights efforts, and me for the 99 Names project; the awards were ebru from a famous Turkish artist, and they were presented by friends Josie Stone and Elaine Emme of the Salt Lake Interfaith Roundtable.  My niece enjoyed the presentation, the food, and the company, and I enjoyed having my niece help clean up!  It was truly a wonderful evening.

Being Neighborly on a Grand Scale: The Christian Muslim Forum

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In 2001 the Archbishop of Canterbury began a strategic initiative, realized in 2006 by the launching of The Christian Muslim Forum—designed to bring together people of faith from Christian and Muslim religious traditions across England, building bridges of understanding and friendship.  Remarkable to me is the unique structure of its leadership, evenly trading between Christian and Muslim clergy.  They are an organization operating in a professional manner, using their remarkable energy and motivation to make neighborly peace a reality, and are an excellent model for others to follow.  The director, Julian Bond, was kind enough to take a few moments to answer some questions about the Forum, and share an overview of past activities.

Leadership roles revolve, and include a broad spectrum of Christian and Muslim clergy.  Why is this, and how does it work?

The Christian Muslim Forum began as the Archbishop’s Initiative for Christian-Muslim Relations, within the Church of England (read more here). Our first Chair was a Bishop in the Church of England. The Chair position revolved every two years for our first five years. However, we took the decision last year to treat both of the Co-Chairs equally, thus moving from a representative of one faith taking the lead role to having joint leadership. This better fits our ethos of the equality of both faiths in our organisation. The Co-Chairs are drawn from our Presidents.

The Presidents are mainly clerics or scholars, though they may also be high profile inter faith practitioners. We are conscious that some of these positions are less likely to be held by women (or not held at all). We have taken the decision to improve the representation of women in the Forum and appointed our first female Muslim President last year. The status and recognition of Presidential candidates is important so that people of both faiths can be satisfied that recognised leaders and spokespeople are included in our organisation.

Muslim and Christian leaders are drawn from many sects within their respective faith traditions.  Why is this important, and how does it affect inter faith cooperation and understanding?

As both faiths are diverse it is vital that their diversity is represented. This brings benefits within our organisation, we can listen to a variety of voices and not be dominated by a single tradition. It also enables us to engage with the diversity of those outside the Forum and facilitate our communication. As well as these factors it is helpful to have traditions represented which have significant similarities across the faiths. However, the greater significance is probably that we have a sense of bringing the broad range of both faiths into our dialogue and are able to engage more effectively with issues that have may a particular impact on some traditions.

How do you reconcile the zeal of profound and personal faith with the need to work together?  Why aren’t the two drives, faith and pluralism, exclusive?

It is our faith that encourages us to work together and we are committed to pluralism, our outlook on our society is pluralistic, nevertheless we retain the exclusives of our faith. It is the zeal of personal faith which drives much of our work and relationship-building amongst ourselves. We developed the Ethical Witness Guidelines precisely out of this space, faith and pluralism go together.

How have the accomplishments of the Forum matched your expectations as Director, as well as the hopes of those involved?  What practical effects do you see from the Forum in the future?

Some of our achievements, such as the guidelines above, productive gatherings of leaders and other resources that we have produced have been exactly what I hoped the Forum would achieve. However, it is my nature, and the organisation’s, not to be satisfied when there is more to do. In our work we seek to increase the number of those supporting and participating in our initiatives, some of our events are very well supported, with others we struggle to find sufficient participants. We are seeking to encourage more Christians and Muslims to work together practically at a local level and are aiming for this to be a very significant part of our work, through our Near Neighbours programme.

What is the single most practical effect you have seen from the Forum?

The biggest effect of our work has been the responses to our ‘Religious Festivals’ statement. This arose out of secular concerns in the UK that celebrating, or even referring, to Christmas could be offensive to people of other faiths. Our statement responded to these concerns and generated a huge media interest, including outside the UK. The statement’s impact continues each year at Christmas-time and it has begun to change attitudes.

Review of 2011

January

‘Telling our Stories’: As we begin our sixth year and have seen our work deepening we have been reflecting that we think we know about each other’s paths of faith but often we don’t really. So what could we do about that? Tell each other our own stories … We will be asking people from many different backgrounds to tell us their journey in life and faith and share their backgrounds, challenges and concerns. Topics: Faiths and the family; Beyond stereotypes; What are the challenges that we, and our families, face?

A Christian-Muslim-Humanist ‘Trialogue’ – an interesting conversation between representatives of three different worldviews, an exploration of how we can talk together effectively and whether there a religious/humanist divide.

March

LIFE – the final phase of our Women’s inter faith and the environment project and the LIFE pack

Mill Towns, Religion and Understanding – an event at Bradford for leaders, taking place in an Islamic seminary (a first for us) and the Cathedral

May

‘Our families in Times of Change’ – a family event (yes we did have a number of children present) reflecting on our experiences of family and religious issues, including inter faith relationships.

June

Trade Justice campaign and statement with the Christian Muslim Youth Forum in partnership with MADE in Europe, at Lambeth Palace.

‘Minding the Gap’ a seminar with a range of experts exploring how mental health services relate to people of faith and faith issues.

October

‘Christian Engagement with Islam’ -  a new departure for us, a single-faith event, for Christians new to, or cautious about, engaging with Muslims.

‘A Place for Faith Schools(?)’ – a day seminar exploring whether whether people of faith should support faith schools.

November

‘Mosque and Church’ – a youth-focused event for Inter Faith Week. Dialogue with young Christians and Muslims in West London and walking between the mosque and the church in the middle.