CHRISTIANS and Muslims must acknowledge the need for reciprocity if they are to live in harmony together, says the Bishop of Rochester, the Right Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, in a new book
Conviction and Conflict. This reciprocity involves not just mutual tolerance but also an understanding that the rights enjoyed by Muslims in the West must be extended to Christians and other religious groups in Muslim countries.
“I don’t just mean tit for tat,” the Bishop says. “I mean that somehow, through dialogue, we should be committed to a set of principles that we can jointly promote.”
This would mean, for example, that both religions should acknowledge that each was “missionary” in character — but both should make efforts to ensure this did not lead to clashes.
The issue is hotly political in many parts of the world. In Nigeria, Indonesia, Bosnia and other places where Islam collides with Christianity, there have been violent clashes over accusations of proselytising. And Christian activists have long protested at the restrictions imposed, for example, in Saudi Arabia, where it is illegal to open any non-Muslim place of worship.
Bishop Michael, who served for years as a bishop in his native Pakistan, calls in his book for freedom to choose one’s religion. “In today’s world, it is increasingly important that there should be a dialogue between people of different faiths on matters to do with fundamental freedoms. These will certainly include the relationship between freedom of expression and public order, freedom of worship and of religious belief generally (including the possibility of changing one’s belief), and freedom of movement without undue restrictions for people on the basis of their religion, race or national origin.”
He acknowledges the problem of apostasy. In Islam this has traditionally been punished by death. He argues, however, that this is not a Koranic injunction; it has come instead from the hadith — the corpus of scholarly tradition. Some modern Islamists “base their view on the claim that Islam is not only a religion, but a socio-political entity, and the punishment is as much for treason as for anything else”.
But, he added in an interview: “Quite a number of ulema (Muslim scholars), both Sunni and Shia, are now saying that, on the basis of the Koranic verse outlawing compulsion in religion, a certain amount of choice is permissible and there should not be coercion.”
In his book, based on a series of lectures on Islamic teaching and thought, he looks at how conflict with Christianity can be avoided. He calls for a reciprocity based on the principles of co-citizenship, equality, the rule of law and human rights.
Sharia was not necessarily the stumbling block. He notes the difference between sharia and fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). Fiqh, or the codification of sharia, is an activity of man, rather than God, and in Muslim eyes is therefore more open to flexibility and interpretation. Controversially, Bishop Michael also suggests that, in grappling with the modern world, Islam is capable of development. Such a view is anathema to conservative Muslims and fundamentalists, who insist that Islam is immutable and cannot be changed in any detail.
Citing his own dialogue on this with the chief justice of the Supreme Court in Pakistan, he argues that both Islam and Christianity have sought to base law on a value system that is, at base, religious. Both religions, therefore, can accept that the arbiters of law and custodians of polity were not religious leaders but elected representatives.
Little of this understanding can be found where Christians and Muslims are in conflict, however. In places such as Nigeria, he admitted, there was a crude, unnuanced understanding of sharia which came into direct conflict with others.
Christians had a duty to speak out over the persecution of co-religionists, he said in an interview. He applauded the work of Christian Solidarity International, a group which highlights the plight of Christians in non-Christian countries. But megaphone diplomacy was not always the best way. Quiet dialogue could achieve much, and often in unlikely places. In Iran, he said, there was great interest in Christianity; some clerics even had a deep understanding and knowledge of St Thomas Aquinas. In Egypt, the ongoing Anglican dialogue — which he leads — with the rector of the ancient Islamic University at al-Azhar, Sheikh Tantawi, had produced important common declarations on peace in the Middle East.
Bishop Michael is one of the best authorities on Islam within the Anglican Church. His doctoral dissertation, begun at Oxford, was a study of Sufism. He said there were many links between the Christian monastic tradition and the Sufis, who were often inspired by this personal quest for salvation.
He regretted that Sufism has been suppressed in almost all Muslim countries with authoritarian governments. It has virtually disappeared from Central Asia, where it was once strong. Islamist militants are deeply hostile to Sufism. Bishop Michael regretted the “baleful” influence of Wahhabi puritanism on Islam. He hoped there would be a revival of Sufism; this was an area, he said, where Christians could find much in common with Islam.
He saw other areas, too, of co-operation. Both Christians and Muslims had to reformulate ideas of the “just war”. The Muslim concept, jihad, had been hijacked by fundamentalists. Bishop Michael also saw real difficulties in attempts to reconcile sharia with secular law in the West. He said the claims by some Muslims that Sharia was “personal law” raised real difficulties. “If you say that Sharia is just personal law, where does this leave marriage law? Or inheritance?” He said the British had attempted to allow personal fiqh for Muslims in India during the Raj, and this was still causing difficulties today, with court cases over inheritance disputes that were continuing.
In his book, to be published this week, Bishop Michael admits that religion can be misused — to incite hatred, to fan division or justify excess. He admits that Christianity as well as Islam has presided over excess — such as the massacre in Jerusalem during the First Crusade. But he said the “instinct for order” in humankind was remarkable. Religion, he argues, “can give a better account of the rise of moral awareness and of fundamental moral principles, such as the primacy of conscience, the equal dignity of all human beings and our sense of duty”. This provided “cohesion and direction for communities and nations” so that mankind can renew society and mitigate conflict.
Conviction and Conflict: Islam, Christianity and World Order by Michael Nazir-Ali is published by Continuum at £14.99.
