THE World Economic Forum at Davos recently constituted a Council of One Hundred to pursue Western and Muslim understanding. Lord Carey of Clifton and Prince Turki al Faisal al Saud, the Saudi Ambassador to the UK, were the co-chairmen. With conflict unabated in Iraq, and misunderstanding growing, they asked: where could people of goodwill find religious common ground?

Christian and Islamic traditions contain a network of overlapping insights that can create a space for mutual comprehension. This is not to say that the two religions are the “same”, in some politically-correct sense. Each has unique and incompatible claims. However, there is irrefutably an architecture of shared ideas which can help to open dialogue. This dialogue cannot share out oil, land or power more fairly; but it can help to dispel the crudest prejudice which demonises all Christians or all Muslims.

Many of the basic tenets of the faiths are closely aligned. For example, the belief in one creator God and a resurrection and Judgment Day. There is only space here to identify a few of the lines of similarity.

Repentance is a keystone of each faith. Any human being, however evil, can start again. As the Koran says: “Those who do evil deeds, repent thereafter and believe . . . thy Lord is all-forgiving, all-compassionate.” (vii, 153). Christianity, in its turn, teaches complete renewal, through repentance in Christ. Everyone “can walk in a new life” (Romans vi, 4). In this shared commitment to personal repentance and mercy, there is a profound link between Islam and Christianity.

The God of the Bible knows everything, and cares for everything. As does He in the Koran: “Not a leaf falls, but he knows it” (vi, 59). All Christians are taught that no sparrow falls unremarked by God. And the Early Church was sure of God’s detailed response to every one of our problems: “We receive mercy and find grace to help us in our times of need” (Hebrews iv, 16).

The Koran shows measured respect for Jesus and Christians. Jesus is “high honoured . . . in this world and in the next, near stationed to God” (iii, 45). Paradoxically, in the figure of Jesus, Muslims and Christians may find a meeting place.

For Muslims, He is a prophet, although not divine, for Christians, He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Nevertheless, His life and teachings, which are important in the Koran, can found one interfaith connection.

As in Christianity, the active love of all human beings, and caring for the poor and the weak, is fundamental to an authentic Muslim way of life: “To give one's substance, however cherished, to kinsmen and orphans, and the needy” (ii, 177). The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews is even more imperative: “Let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds”. Here, as so often, each faith requires the same standards of behaviour from its followers.

Lastly, the faiths share a mystery. A deep set belief that there is a God who transcends all human reason and vision, in an emanation of the utmost beauty. In the Koran, God’s light is “a glass, the glass as it were a glittering star kindled from a Blessed Tree . . . Light upon Light.” (xxiv, 38-43). In Exodus, God’s glory is of such unbearable force and beauty that, to sense God’s presence, Moses must stand in the cleft in the rock, his face shielded by the Lord (xxxiii, 22).

Light and love are at the centre of Islam and Christianity. In both, God is all-loving. It is the challenge of the Council of One Hundred, and every one of us, to build a space where Muslims and Christians can connect, free of the shadow of prejudice and in the light of mutual respect and knowledge.

Bruce Dear is a lawyer and a former history and theology teacher