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Los Angeles: A Microcosm for National Conversations on Religion, Public Life and Deep Diversity


The intellectual enterprise of talking about multiculturalism and pluralist co-existence carries an inherent tension. On the one hand, the gap between theorizing and empirical research points to the need to embed ourselves in a dialectical understanding of both spheres. On the other hand, the field carries the exciting and yet traumatizing effects of a dynamically changing landscape, rendering long-term analysis difficult. The public debate often becomes overly focused on the day-to-day developments and makes co-imbricated realities all the more complex. Having experienced this difficulty during my fieldwork within the Muslim communities in Boston and the San Francisco Bay Area, where I spent considerable time among six Muslim communities, I wanted my research in Los Angeles to focus more exclusively on the wider narratives that defined the public conversation on religion in Southern California.

Faced with this challenge I travelled to the Los Angeles metropolitan area in June 2013 to observe how Muslim, Catholic and secular communities interacted not only with each other but also within themselves, and how they perceived the deep pluralities of the modern age in an increasingly cosmopolitan, diverse landscape. It soon became clear that this city with 13 million residents stands out as a not-too-small laboratory for the national debates in the U.S., from immigration reform to the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby and Wheaton College decisions in 2014, to more recent national conversations on sexual identities, racial discrimination, criminal justice reform, and the challenge of ISIS. In many ways Los Angeles is a microcosm for the many difficult conversations that haunt academics, policy-makers and lay citizens alike.

The full-scale representation of the nation’s most pressing conversations in Los Angeles becomes all the more important when its religious roots are considered. Los Angeles has been a major center of Catholic immigration and institutionalization from the early 17th century onwards; it witnessed the birth of the Pentecostal tradition in early 20th century; and has been home to one of the most diverse populations of American Muslims. From West Hollywood’s famous celebrity-sighting spot Urth Caffé, a product of the cooperation between an interfaith couple and their ecumenical-Christian-new-age religious networks, to the role of inner-city religious congregations in healing the city after the 1992 Rodney King riots, religious identities and actors are markedly important in constituting the city’s moral economy even as Los Angeles continues to lead the production of materialist/secular ethos that shapes not only local and national, but also global perceptions of the contemporary world.

Global Challenges, Local Dynamics and Securitization

The illustrative debates in Los Angeles indicate the need for urgency in unpacking what liberal citizenship can—and fails to—offer to help make sense of “deep plurality” in both the theoretical and the everyday realms. In a 2014 interview with the New York Times, President Obama argued that what went wrong in the Arab Spring and the Muslim world, in general, was the failure to bring together multiple political, ethnic, and religious identities in a pluralist ethics. Several months later, in a statement in the aftermath of Charlie Hebdo attacks, Obama also argued that unlike in the case of America’s Muslim immigrants, Western European countries failed to develop inclusive policies of integration toward their Muslim populations. While Obama’s earlier reference was directed towards the dynamics between Democrats and the Republicans, and American Muslims feel they are advantaged compared to most European Muslims, it is imperative to take this problem seriously and realize that despite the political and cultural legitimacy attained by most religious minorities in the United States, American civil religion is not free of challenges.

My Muslim interlocutors in California increasingly recognize that while part of the country and the political elite grant them a public role and legitimacy, there are others who have found ample public space to delegitimize and securitize Muslim Americans. Even optimists are quick to criticize Obama, who enjoys overwhelming support among American Muslims. They argue that while the Federal government has invested a lot in optics when it comes to engaging with American Muslims, the President has carefully avoided stepping his foot in a mosque in the United States due to fear of electoral politics. They also point to the FBI’s continuous surveillance of mosques and use of informants to argue that meaningful engagement with Muslim Americans has not found adequate attention on the part of the Federal government, and that often times Muslims are treated “publicly as partners and privately as suspects.” While several meetings in the White House over the last year have started to address this problem, a long-term perspective underlines that not only federal but also local dynamics and partnerships will be a crucial component in overcoming anti-Muslim populist bias.

And yet, the exploitation of populist fears and discourses have become only more pronounced in the aftermath of the November 13, 2015 Paris and December 2, 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attacks. The fallout from both attacks has further increased the already unprecedented spike in anti-Muslim hate crimes and sentiment, creating historic levels of anxiety across American Muslim landscape. More promising developments, however, have also been seen. Building on earlier relationships developed in interfaith and civic settings, numerous nationally prominent Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Evangelical leaders have condemned anti-Muslim rhetoric, in addition to public statements and displays of support from local civic and faith leaders, including many in Los Angeles, Boston and San Francisco. As Muslim Americans claim a greater space in the public sphere and adopt the language and practice of civil rights activism and political lobbying at the local and national scene, these developments have also highlighted efforts of local organizations such as Sahaba Initiative who have been addressing social problems in the economically challenged landscape of San Bernardino over the past 5 years.

Even as most politicians condemned anti-Muslim rhetoric, recent polls suggest that public fear of refugees/immigrants and Muslims seems to have coalesced around partisan lines, much in line with America’s culture wars. Muslim American leaders face the challenging multiple tasks of defending their faith against organizations such as ISIS, combating Islamophobia, and responding to demands to root out extremism—a demand many rightfully argue is not burdened on followers of other faith traditions. Additionally, post-San Bernardino conversations have shed light on some government policies that have come to be perceived as normal in the securitized atmosphere of post 9/11 era. There is an understandable concern that the challenge of ISIS may result in further government involvement in the management of American religious life despite constitutional safeguards, and that public perception of Islam will be shaped mainly around questions of terrorism and radicalization.

Ever since the US Attorney’s office designated Los Angeles in September 2014 as one of the three pilot cities – along with Boston and Minneapolis – where authorities have started to engage Muslim communities to counter violent extremism (CVE) in light of ISIS’s perceived reach among Western Muslims, these perceptions and dynamics have become all the more crucial. The CVE Summit in Washington last year created a flurry of positive and critical commentary, public posturing, and heated debate on the potential negative implications of a CVE-specific engagement with Muslim communities. Even though the White House has refused charges of singling out and securitizing Muslim communities and President Obama gave a reassuring speech at the summit, many observers, including some who were part of the meetings, point out that the political scene may soon change, rendering these programs potentially problematic in the long-run, much like their failed precedents in Britain. A telling example of the securitization of muslim communities was the September 2015 arrest of Sudanese-American high-school student Ahmed Mohamed of Irving, Texas. The 14-year old Ahmed brought to his school an alarm clock he built at home, hoping to get accolades from his teachers. Instead, he was arrested after a teacher found the home-made clock suspicious. Whereas the public outpouring of support from high-tech giants to President Obama seem to have made up for the mistake, opponents of CVE initiatives point out that the Muslim teen’s teachers were indeed merely following a CVE approach and that it is the federal government to be blamed for their programs that treat its Muslim citizens as “usual suspects.”

As epitomized in recent remarks from some presidential hopefuls, anti-Muslim sensationalism coupled with anti-immigration sentiments seems poised to rise in the upcoming election year. Although voices from many sectors of the American socio-political spectrum have provided a strong defense of religious freedom and underlined the non-discrimination and no religious test for political office principles, American Muslims continue to be rightly concerned about a nativist reaction to Islam that frequently resorts to a vaguely defined threat of “radical Islam” and distortive anti-Shariʻa discourses in an effort to justify anti-Muslim rhetoric.

It is crucial therefore to note that while America’s politico-historical narrative on secularism and state-church relations, and its wider ethico-philosophical approaches to a public role for religion, are conducive to vitalizing pluralist coexistence, religious congregations and local policy-makers in the United States are increasingly arguing that the country may soon find itself closer to the crises that mark the debates in Western Europe and Quebec. The negotiations across and within Muslim and Catholic traditions—traditions that are dynamic rather than fixed, normatively heterogeneous rather than homogeneous, and increasingly individualistic—provide a good starting point to contemplate how we can envision pluralist co-existence as social responsibility, without transforming it into an authoritarian discourse.

Conversations across and within Faith Traditions

In Los Angeles these negotiations manifest themselves in terms of inter-faith and intra-faith dialogues—as a perpetual arbitration between the meta-narratives of religious traditions and their lived realities. During my fieldwork, the primary recurring theme that I encountered was the need for meaningful dialogue across and within ethico-religious traditions. Many of my interlocutors emphasized that pluralist coexistence requires diverse religious traditions to remain in constant dialogue, not only with other traditions, but also within their own faith. They reiterated that while many faith leaders reflected on the evolution of their own religious communities in the United States, they avidly kept an eye on the experiences of other faith traditions. The constant dynamic of inter and intra religious dialogue becomes all the more important in the context of Muslim and Catholic communities in Los Angeles and Orange County, as they make up one of the largest and most diverse communities across the U.S. The diversity within the communities themselves, including variations in socio-economic status, and variety the urban/suburban settings inhabited within each community are matched in the ethnic, theological, and sociological diversity manifested in each traditions respective historical evolutions.

In the vibrant civic landscape of the greater Los Angeles area, both American Catholics and American Muslims are still trying to carve out a dignified presence, even when they have established themselves as integral elements of the city’s civic life. The religious congregations hold considerable sway over the mayoral and sheriff elections, and, while wary of the role of religion in public sphere, the local authorities constantly seek engagement with Muslim and Catholic communities. Yet, their struggle for the acceptance of their “religious being” in the United States continues. This struggle takes on multiple colors as conversations move across generations, across immigrant and indigenous communities, socio-economic classes, ethnic communities, and across the urban and suburban landscapes.

The Los Angeles Archdiocese’s major masses in the Cathedral of the Our Lady of Angels, located across from the City Hall, invariably start with an emphasis on the multicultural nature of the Archdiocese. That the Archdiocese is the most multicultural in the nation and that the Sunday mass is offered in 42 languages across the Catholic parishes in Los Angeles is emphasized. In Orange County, the recently acquired Crystal Cathedral speaks to the needs of a flourishing Catholic community with its Vietnamese, Hispanic, and Korean communities. In the Muslim community there is an equally dramatic diversity. From the Iranian and Arab Shi’a communities to Sunni Arab and South Asian communities, to African-American, Latino and Cham Muslims originating from Cambodia, over 130 mosques and community centers organize under the umbrella of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California since 1994, in addition to the recently formed Shi’a Muslim Council of Southern California. In the urban and suburban jungle of Los Angeles multi-million dollar mega cathedrals and mega mosques with professional staff co-exist with struggling parishes and mosques, highly trained clergy serve Muslim and Catholic Angelenos along with part-time, loosely educated individuals. And yet, neither the loosely structured Shura Council nor the formal, highly structured Archdiocese hold fundamental control over how these communities engage with the experiences and exigencies of their daily lives. Improving and instilling theological and sociological literacy, particularly customized for American public life, is a mutual challenge for clergy and community leaders in both Muslim and Catholic communities.

Keeping the youth within the fold of respective Muslim and Catholic identities and the continuity of religio-ethical perspectives as they play out in the fields of mosque/parish life, clergy/imam education, pastoral care, youth programs, and formal education are shared concerns especially in the face of moral dilemmas posed by the dominant secular ethos. From daily practice to religious garb, to sexual identities, and mixed faith marriages, the variables are plural, the solutions are often elusive and interpretive plurality is on the rise. On the other hand, a number of focal incidents that fall under the categories of education, sexual identities, interfaith relations, civic-political engagement, and institutional transformation continue to mark the dialogues within and across Muslim and Catholic communities.

Faithful Citizenship

While the national conversation on immigration reform is highly debated across the spectrum, the Catholic Church in Los Angeles has joined the debate through their faithful citizenship initiative, and have joined with Muslim communities by recently endorsing a pro-immigration stance. And, similar to the often divisive national debate, one of the major issues that stands out in my conversations across the spectrum in Los Angeles concerns how new immigrants can be enculturated into the mainstream. In the Muslim community, this issue comes across as an issue of self-reflection, especially among those who lead Muslim institutions since some of these are first-generation immigrants themselves. Speaking from inside, the leaders of organizations, including but not limited to Los Angeles Chapter of Council on American Muslim Relations (CAIR), Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), Islah LA, Umma Clinic, and Access California look at the debates within their communities, and try to streamline both new immigrants’ reflexes and challenges faced by the second and third generations into a coherent vision for the future of American Islam. The creative tension created by increasing plurality and maturation of the community requires multiple Muslim actors to engage their tradition in light of their lived reality in a pluralistic society. It is crucial that this engagement takes place against the backdrop of an increasingly rich literature and debate on jurisprudence of Muslim minorities (fiqh al-aqalliyat), diasporic jurisprudence, and legal plurality that has influenced how Muslim Americans, in Kathleen M. Moore’s words, “narrate themselves into the multicultural nation and state.”

In the Catholic communities, there is a similar awareness, especially among those who compare their positions to the generation of their parents, and by those priests who engage with immigrant communities and fellow clergy. While the theological exigencies presented by Vatican II and the adaptation of Nostra Aetate continue to inform the ecumenical and interfaith approaches, there is prevalent agreement that American—as well as Asian, Hispanic and African—clergy serving the Catholic faithful are not up-to-date with Rome’s theological interpretations. It is true that Pope Francis brought a much needed fresh breath of air to the Catholic communities and Catholic faith’s relationship with other spiritual paths. Pope Francis’ 2015 visit to the United States clearly highlighted his pastoral approach and his concern for the long-term livelihood of the Catholic Church, especially in the Western Hemisphere. While Francis’ visit was limited to the East Coast, his canonization of Junipero Serra—despite concerns with his missionizing activities—was celebrated by Archbishop of Los Angeles Jose Gomez as a reminder of America’s deep religious and intercultural roots. Although much of the public attention has focused on Pope Francis’ earlier remarks about moving away from an exclusive discussion of abortion and same-sex marriage and his decision to authorize all priests to absolve the sin of abortion during the upcoming “Jubilee of Mercy” year, his tone and emphasis on crafting a Catholic message appropriate for the diversity of modern age carries crucial implications. And most American Catholics seem to approve of Francis’ message. Nevertheless, faced with questions from the more conservative congregations—echoing some members of Catholic hierarchy—religious leaders in Los Angeles persist in emphasizing that the Pope’s stance does not necessarily mean that canonical changes are in order.

Compared to the Muslim communities, questions around cultural and theological authority have become less critical among Catholic Angelenos, partly because Muslim immigration is more recent and their institutions are more nascent. Being a Catholic American is more “normal,” but living a Catholic life in the United States is just as challenging and enterprise as living a Muslim life in the U.S. And yet, both Muslim and Catholic Americans inherit similar, if not the same, problems. Clerics and community leaders struggle with many aspects of public ethics, not the least because just as in Montreal, Paris, and Amsterdam, the city they live in simultaneously gifts them with a deep, dizzying plurality.

These conversations are also in close contact with critical themes that continue to challenge the wider spectrum of religious Americans. Soon after arriving in Los Angeles I attended one of the quarterly Catholic-Buddhist dialogue meetings. Just after the meeting started, one of the senior monks in the room deferred to his dialogue companions’ advice: He had started having problems with his order that is headquartered in Seoul, because he had officiated a gay marriage in his community. He said, “this is my congregation, this is who they are, here in the West we cannot continue to deny this.” “Well,” the Catholic participants humorously countered him, “we may not be the ideal cohort to help you out with this” and the more conservative Buddhist monks chose to remain silent. What followed this initial exchange was an exciting conversation on how inter-faith marriage, changing norms of morality, and gender relations were collectively and simultaneously putting them in a difficult place as pastors and advisors in their communities.

My conversations in Los Angeles indicate that the interfaith scene is marked by an incredible dynamism, and yet both Muslims and Catholics are seeking ways to move away from a “lowest common denominator” approach to interfaith relations and create ways to further entrench their faith, not only in their respective traditions but also in religion. Again, both communities seemed to have moved away from perspectives that saw interfaith dialogues as anathema, and today have a deep belief in their importance. Nevertheless, interfaith alliances such as the South Coast Interfaith Council, despite their remarkable successes over the years, recognize the difficulties in reaching out to certain segments of faith communities, as well as, the problems with trickling down agreements and activities at the top to the local, every-day communities. Similarly, the debate on sexual identities and same-sex marriage continues to present challenges for Muslim and Catholic communities. When many Muslim organizations endorsed Proposition 8, which sought to limit same-sex marriage in 2008, some argued it was politically unwise to do so. Feeling betrayed, many faith-based allies of Muslim Americans, particularly from the Protestant congregations, who frequently came out in support against Islamophobia and securitization of Islam, protested this endorsement.

These debates on identity and religious interpretation take a significantly critical tone in educational settings. At New Horizon School Pasadena, a national blue-ribbon school, Muslim educators try to equip their students with an informed Islamic perspective on abortion and same-sex marriage, readily admitting that they are concerned with normatively inhospitable stance towards religious perspectives on these issues in the public realm. They hope, however, that their students will imbricate their American Muslim identity in the larger public environment successfully. Across town, Loyola Marymount University, a private Catholic university that takes pride in its Jesuit/Marymount identity, became the focus of a heated controversy in 2013 when the school dropped elective abortions from their health plans and instead offered TPA insurances. While the more conservative Catholics were happy with the decision, they objected to the TPA formula; others, including Catholic and non-Catholic staff, faculty and students, objected to the decision all together. The school’s non-catholic president who has since left LMU had to urge everyone to take into consideration that “We are not a parish or a seminary… But we are a Catholic university. We are not and will not be shackled by a paw of orthodoxy but neither are we USC or Pomona. Our Catholic, Jesuit, Marymount identity has meaning… Like many of you I reflected deeply about what it means to be a Catholic, Jesuit, Marymount University at these times.” When California Governor Jerry Brown’s administration put an end to the discussion, forcing Loyola Marymount and other religious colleges to provide coverage for elective abortions, the decision was not well-received among some Catholic circles. Similar debates have come to the fore following Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage and Angeleno Catholic and Muslim voices underlined their doctrinal position on the issue, with varying degrees of alarmism and concern. And we may see future prolonged legal battles about sexual ethics as well as non-authoritative yet influential voices critical of their own faith communities’ stances.

Living in an Unfinished America?

These vignettes from some of the more critical incidents and conversations that took place during my research point out that Los Angeles is marked by the plurality of ethico-religious interpretations and a multiplicity of actors. As the cultural and intellectual authority and the role of religion in both private and public space are constantly challenged by the secular ethos of modern American society, cross-generational religious literacy, the survivability of the religious paradigm, and cultivating a dignified existence for religious citizens all continue to be a shared concern across the Abrahamic and other ethico-religious traditions. Similarly, those American citizens who approach religion skeptically and promote various forms of non-religion are curious to know how the public role of religion can signify the diversity of the society while, at the same time, co-exist with laws that restrain its role in public life. While they frequently disagree on how best to address these challenges, public figures and private individuals realize that this diversity needs to be re-articulated in the 21st century landscape of Los Angeles, necessitating novel socio-political imaginaries.

A recent photovoice project that the San Francisco Human Rights Commission put together in cooperation with Arab, Muslim, and Sikh communities in 2015 to highlight stories of discrimination and resilience was reflective of the continuously changing ethical, legal, and religious landscape of the country was aptly titled: “Living in an Unfinished America,” implying that there might be a more perfect end to the American story. However critical one may be of such a utopian end, as the most recent Pew Religious Landscape Survey points out, the religious ecology of United States continues to change greatly, influencing future trajectory of religious pluralism. By comparison with the 2007 survey, Catholics and Protestants have witnessed a dramatic loss of membership, the “nones” are attracting individuals from other altars at a remarkably high rate, and Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu populations are on the rise.

Importantly, American Muslim and Catholic communities engage with the new plurality at different stages of their respective historical evolutions in the ever-changing American religious and legal-ethical landscape. It is exactly because of their historical situatedness that my American Muslim interlocutors place a high stake in the successful evolution of a truly multicultural citizenship imagination and equate the development of a sustainable American Muslim community as truly embedded in the successful development of the multicultural futures of the American religio-political landscape. It is clear, however, that merely pitting the American experience with public religion against an avowedly secular/laicist European tradition will not produce meaningful answers to the multiple challenges that face the ever-growing American religious plurality. A more productive approach would be to move towards contextualized interpretations of novel moral imaginaries, towards those shared conceptual maps that inhabit American religious and non-religious communities.

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Ahmet Tekelioglu
Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu is the content editor for Mayadan, the academic blog for the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from Boston University. His research is located at the intersection of religion and secularism, politics of ethno-religious identities, Muslim minorities in the West, and international relations theories. Ahmet Selim's dissertation examines six American Muslim communities in Boston and the San Francisco Bay Area with a focus on contemporary debates about American Muslim identity and transnational belonging. From 2013-2015, Ahmet Selim lead the Los Angeles leg of the Public Ethics and Citizenship in Plural Societies Project, as part of a team of researchers at Boston University's Institute on Religion Culture and World Affairs (CURA), working with Contending Modernities.
Global Migration & the New Cosmopolitanism article

The New Western Plurality and Citizen Co-Existence


Two developments over the past generation have presented serious challenges to the ideals and practice of Western citizenship. The first has been an unprecedented expansion of migration to Western countries, including that from Muslim societies and the broader global south. It goes without saying that the migratory vectors of our age pass not just from south to north, but across countries of the developing world. But the late-modern march of humanity to Western lands is of such a scale and complexity that it has raised questions about existing models of pluralist citizenship—a challenge which has been exacerbated by its cultural timing. In the aftermath of the great secularist surges of the 1960s and 1970s, most Western European and North American countries had reached a new consensus on the place of religion in public life. But many new immigrants brought with them, or discovered in their new homelands, different ideas as to how and where to be religiously observant.

Resurgence of Religion

The second development that moved questions of religion, ethics, and citizenship to the center of public discussion in the West has been the global revitalization in religion since the 1970s. In phenomena as diverse as Hindu nationalism, Islamic resurgence, Pentecostal conversion, and America’s culture wars, these developments showed that contemporary religions have not merely weathered the secularizing challenges of the age, but, as Jose Casanova and others have long argued, reasserted themselves as public religions. In presenting their faith as of public relevance, religious adherents have come squarely into conflict with assertively secularist models of citizenship and civility ascendant in many parts of Western Europe (but much less decisively in North America) since the 1960s.

Together these two developments have raised deep questions about received values and practices of pluralist co-existence in Western societies. At times the resulting controversies have led to non-violent but heated “culture wars” over questions of public values and co-existence. At other times, as in London in July 2005, in Oslo in June 2011, in January’s Charlie Hebdo attacks, and most recently with the attacks on Paris in November, the culture wars have spilled into acts of real physical violence. Whatever the precise sequence of events, as the British political philosopher Tariq Modood observed in Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea, these developments have put in question received Western models of liberal citizenship. The fact that the pace of immigration and the growing plurality of Western societies show no sign of diminishing soon suggests that the question of just what is required, public-ethically speaking, for pluralist co-existence is likely to remain at the heart of debates in Western societies for some years to come.

Paris, Amsterdam, Montreal, Los Angeles

It is against this backdrop that the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs (CURA) at Boston University undertook 16 months of field research on migration, the new plurality, and pluralist co-existence in metropolitan Paris, Amsterdam, Montreal, and Los Angeles, as part of the University of Notre Dame’s Contending Modernities initiative. These four cities were selected for three reasons. The first is that the nations of which they are part are heirs to quite different regimes of secular-liberal governance, vividly demonstrating that the “liberal” West is heir to, not one, but as Alfred Stepan put it a few years back, “multiple secularisms.” The variation across cities also reminds us that, to borrow a Stepan phrase once again, patterns of state-religion-society relations in these settings “are best seen as conjunctural, socially constructed, political arrangements, rather than as fixed normative models” (p.114).

The second reason for choosing these cities is that the main religious traditions to which each of the surrounding societies is heir are today undergoing great changes, not least as a result of the precipitous decline and repositioning of once-dominant faith-traditions (with the notable exception of the United States). The third reason for our choice is related to this second: all four cities happen to be sites of innovation by actors aiming to rework received traditions in such a way as to respond to the deep plurality of the age.

Catholic, Muslim, Secular

Although the challenge of pluralist coexistence is today being felt by all ethico-religious communities in Western societies, our project focused on three: Muslims, Catholics, and a loose assortment of groupings that we have referred to (while recognizing the polymorphous diversity the phrase hides) ethical “secularists.” The focus is directly inspired by the tri-civilizational comparison highlighted by the Contending Modernities research and education initiative. In the case of our New Western Plurality project, however, the focus was also intended to make comparisons across countries manageable by limiting the range of ethical groupings and traditions studied.

Our research on these three ethical traditions was never meant to imply that they are or will be the most decisive for the future of pluralist co-existence in these lands. Indeed, over the course of the research we were regularly reminded of the scale of the ethical and epistemological challenges all three traditions face. Many Muslims, indeed probably the majority in Amsterdam and Paris, rarely if ever go to mosque, and many have an at best cultural rather than explicit normative identification with Islamic traditions. The much-discussed fragmentation of authority in late-modern Muslim communities has also diminished any confidence some might have that Muslim intellectuals and leaders ideas on pluralism will be easily embraced by a broader Muslim public.

In both its scale and varieties of affiliation, the Catholic community is even more complicated than the Muslim. In the Netherlands and Quebec, if not in the United States (where Church membership in cities like Los Angeles has been buoyed by Hispanic immigration and the continuing resilience of religion in public life generally), the Church over the past forty years has been so severely shaken by dwindling parish membership as to force the hierarchy into crisis-management mode. As one advisor to the Netherlands bishops told me in September 2014, “the bishops are so busy with school closures, dwindling finances, and membership disaffiliation that most have little time to devote to the debates about pluralist citizenship raging in the society around them.” Notwithstanding these challenges, the Catholic hierarchy in all four societies has devoted special staff and resources to inter-faith initiatives. Indeed, some of the most thoughtful Christian spokespersons we encountered over the course of our research were people like Father Christophe Roucou, director of the French Church’s Service nationale pour les relations avec l’Islam. While the voice of figures like Pere Roucou commands respect in inter-faith circles, however, there is no certain transference of that influence out into the broader population of “cultural” Catholics. Some of the latter maintain what British sociologist Grace Davie has called (speaking of many varieties of European Christians) a “vicarious” identification with Christianity, “believing without belonging.”  Others belong without much believing – taking their cues from popular pundits and politicians as much or even more than Church spokespersons.

So our focus on Catholics, Muslims, and ethical secularists was not premised on the assumption that intellectuals and leaders in the organized wings of these communities exert a determinant influence on popular ethical opinion. Our premise was simpler: we felt, and research confirmed, that looking at leaders and initiatives in and around these groups could provide a useful perch from which to observe ongoing ethical debates over how to live together in the new Western plurality, at a time when many citizens regard received models of liberal and/or multicultural citizenship with unease, uncertainty, or outright skepticism.

From Normative Work to Public Reasoning

Armed with this research imperative, during the early months of our project we trained our attention on the normative work being done by community leaders and public intellectuals engaging the new plurality in creative and hopeful ways. We were also interested in the obstacles and opposition that the proponents of ethical pluralism encountered, both from within and outside their respective communities. We were particularly curious to see how these actors might be drawing on elements in their own ethical traditions to devise new ideas and practices for pluralist co-existence.

In this phase of our project, our approach drew on that developed by the anthropologist John Bowen, in his pioneering Can Islam be French? Pluralism and Pragmatism in a Secularist State. Several years back Bowen set out to explore the “public reasoning” of Muslim teachers and intellectuals in France, looking to their own Islamic heritage for ethical guides to living in new European homelands. Like Bowen, we were convinced that, even in an era of irreverent postmodernism, some among the citizenry look to received ethical traditions to grapple with contemporary moral problems.

The complexity of this research ambition quickly became apparent, however. One problem was that so much of the sound and fury of public ethical turbulence in the cities we were studying emanated from actors outside of and little concerned with these ethical traditions. Drawing as our project did on prior research on the politics of public spheres, we had expected as much. What we hadn’t fully anticipated was just how effective populist actors and media could be in sidelining thoughtful public discussion and, in so doing, changing the terms of public debate on topics as varied as Muslim women’s headscarves, core values courses, or, most generally, what it means to be French, Dutch, Quebecois, or American.

Focal Events

Rather then limiting our research focus to public figures with polished discursive skills, then, we extended it to examine what we called “focal events” which brought a broad variety of actors and voices into public ethical contention. In the public controversies surrounding “Black Pete” in the Netherlands, the laicist and broadly anti-Islamic “Charter of Values” in Quebec in 2013-2014, and the rise of the National Front in French national and EU elections—each of which are discussed in the essays that will follow—we looked not just at the admirable efforts of high-minded pluralists, but statements and actions of protagonists more interested in “winning” than developing a coherent or faithful ethical discourse. Although often overlooked in discussions of ethics and modern public spheres, this “un-Habermasian” politics of positioning and media caricature is a key influence on late-modern ethical life.

At the beginning of our project we had not intended to make Islam or Muslims a pivotal point of research reference more central than any other. However, during the middle months of our research in late 2013 and 2014, questions related to Muslims and Western citizenship surged to the fore. International events were of course part of this: the dark terrorist attacks of the early 2000s had given way in 2011 to the bright hopes of the Arab spring, only to be clouded again by developments in Syria and Iraq, not least the gruesome post-modern mediatrics of the so-called Islamic State in Syria and the Levant.

But other events closer to our four cities also drove ostensibly Muslim issues to the fore, even if, as our research recognized, the issues always had as much or more to do with a some imagined national subjectivity than it did Muslims or Islam as such. The proposal for a starkly laicist “Charter of Values in Quebec,” put forth by leaders of the Parti Quebecois in late 2013 caught Canadian Muslims and Quebec pluralists by surprise, and set off a half-year debate on the place of religion in general and Islam in particular in Quebec society. Opposition to gay marriage and the “Marriage for All” legislation in France created an implicit if uneasy alliance between some segments of the Catholic and Muslim communities. For some non-Muslim French, the apparent alliance of conservative Catholics and Muslims only confirmed their conviction that Muslims did not share properly modern republican values. (In actual fact the Muslim community was divided on the gay marriage issue, some feeling that the issue risked alienating longstanding allies). In the Netherlands, too, the rise of overtly anti-Islamic parties on the right and requirements that immigrants master Dutch language and “core values and norms” have kept Muslims and Islam at the center of citizenship debates. Each of these case studies is explored in the following blog posts from Azeddine Hmimssa, Carol Ferara and Ahmet Yukleyen.

A New Spirit of Cooperation and Solidarity

Although some might have expected Islamic issues to loom even larger in the still- “post-9/11” United States, Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu and I were regularly reminded that the situation is not quite so simple. Ahmet spent a year in Los Angeles, and an additional six months research in San Francisco and Boston. As I followed him to some of his research sites, meeting with Muslim, Catholic, and other public intellectuals and community leaders, both of us were struck by the quiet purposiveness and optimism of intellectuals and leaders in the Muslim community. Certainly, many people, both Muslim and non-Muslims, spoke of the pain and anxiety experienced by many American Muslims in the months the followed the 9/11 attacks. But many too spoke of a new spirit of cooperation and solidarity. Indeed, Ahmet encountered many Muslim Americans who spoke of a veritable civic renaissance among American Muslims since the middle 2000s, particularly in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston, where Muslim demographics and institutions are of such a scale to allow for a synergy across Muslim worship, educational, and civil-rights organizations.

There are other conjunctural peculiarities to the American scene that make the situation of American Muslims hopeful and dynamic. One is a perception that personal religiosity in the public sphere finds easier acceptance than in some parts of Europe – a perception that, interestingly enough, was also voiced by young hijabi women we met in Amsterdam and Paris, some of whom expressed interest in emigrating to the U.S. for just that reason. But there is another historical circumstance that makes the American Muslim situation distinctive. As African-American Muslim scholars like Sherman A. Jackson points out (see his moving Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking toward the Third Resurrection), thirty percent of American Muslims are African-American, and, although their interactions with Middle Eastern and South Asian immigrants have not always gone smoothly, they have nonetheless created rich moral synergies. Immigrant Muslims learned civil-rights skills from their African American brothers and sisters. They also learned of the importance of building broad social alliances and new educational institutions for community betterment. Perhaps no institution embodies this history more profoundly than the recently established Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, the first Muslim-based liberal arts college in the U.S. Zaytuna was founded by an alliance that included African American Muslim preachers, Euro-American converts to Islam (including the gifted Shaykh Hamza Yusuf), and Muslim intellectuals from the South Asian and Middle Eastern-descended Muslim community. Combining an appreciation for classical Islamic jurisprudence with Islamic spirituality and civil-rights idealism, Zaytuna is a striking example of what makes the American Muslim experience of deep cultural interest for the global Muslim ummat.

Living Together in Ethical Difference

By way of conclusion, and to respond to questions that the other researchers and I have regularly been asked, I offer a few preliminary reflections on what our project might say about living together in the deep ethical different that marks the new Western plurality.

Our study began against the backdrop of a broad body of research that had dispelled the confidence once widespread in policy circles that formal democratic institutions alone are sufficient to “make democracy work” (to borrow Robert Putnam’s much-used phrase) under conditions of growing religious and ethical pluralism. Contrary to the hopes of policy makers in the 1980s and 1990s, even a vibrant “civil society” or network of civic associations cannot guarantee a tolerant and inclusive citizenry.

In speaking of Muslim integration in the contemporary West, Jonathan Laurence’s panoramic book, The Emancipation of Europe’s Muslims: The State’s Role in Minority Integration suggests (referring in particular to Europe) that the cultural integration of Muslims can be managed easily enough, if it is carried out on the model of corporatist accommodations devised a century ago between governing elites and representatives of the Jewish community. Laurence is right to emphasize the state’s crucial role in any sustainable civic integration. However, our research suggests that corporate deals by themselves will never be enough to make a new pluralism work; it’s also important to bring society back in (a point with which Laurence, a consultant to the project in its early stages, would no doubt agree).

Changing Aspirations: From citizenship to Social Recognition

Several things make the new Western plurality a more daunting ethical challenge than that of a century ago. Some of the new, religiously observant citizens are today less willing to make the life-style and religious concessions that Catholic and Jewish minorities may have been willing to make three or four generations earlier.   As Tariq Modood has pointed out, drawing on Charles Taylor’s early work, most of the new citizens aspire not merely to formal citizenship, but to a publicly expansive social recognition. Yet, as we all know, in some Western countries a significant portion of the long-resident population is reconsidering just how much of the new multicultural plurality they are willing to put up with, not least with regards to Muslims. Headscarved teachers in some lander in Germany, minarets in Switzerland, hijabs, niqabs, and any variety of “ostensible” religiosity in public institutions in France – these are, it seems, a multicultural bridge too far for some Europeans.  However offensive some populist players in the anti-accommodative camp may sound, the disagreement over what common values and cultural practices are needed for sustainable pluralism is a serious one, and practicable answers will not be simple.

Inevitably, however, we circle back to the same questions: Who is to say what values will figure among those to be shared? And who has the right and capacity to nurture them? Recognizing the limitations of his 1994 model for “making democracy work,” the Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam has said that one key lies in nurturing “bridging” as well as “bonding” civic associations. That sounds sociologically appealing, and it resonates with the proposals made by scholars in the field of peace studies who say that the key to making plurality work is for people from diverse ethnic, religious, and social backgrounds to put aside their intellectual reservations and join with people of diverse backgrounds in local campaigns of community organizing and betterment.   Our research confirms that interfaith collaborations are helpful, and may well be transformative of some individuals. But a nagging question remains: What is to be done with the overwhelming majority people who have neither the opportunity nor the inclination to participate in what David Barclay has aptly called “political friendships?”

Building the New Western Pluralism

In the end, I believe, the evidence suggests that there is no single key to pluralist civility. What is needed instead is a virtuous circle of serious normative work, high-minded civic associations, and state agencies collaborating in the creation and public performance of a new pluralist consensus. Fine words, but what might that mean? First of all, rather than a single pluralist pathway in all cities or countries, there will and must be many. To put the matter differently, the proponents of pluralist co-existence have no choice but to begin with the resources at hand, and hope that the moral message and practices they promote can slowly be extended to other social fields. In some instances, it makes sense to begin locally, with small groups of inter-religious/ethical dialogue and organization. But if these local groups are not to be swept aside by populist bullies, they must also look more widely. In particular, they must devise ways to scale up collaborations across the state-society divide, promoting pluralism-friendly messages in schools, the media, and the marketplace. Where the social imaginaries of local communities are religious, the promotion of pluralist practices will also require the participation of religious leaders and intellectuals, able to legitimate general models of pluralist co-existence in tradition-specific terms.

The idea that there is no single institutional key to achieving pluralist civility may strike some readers as a spare or pessimistic conclusion indeed. The conclusion is modest but it offers not a counsel of pessimism but a message of practical hope. Modern societies are made up of diverse social fields and history shows that pluralist progress in one field can be easily reversed by uncivil bigotry in another. The challenge for the proponents of pluralist civility, then, is to devise ways to slowly extend inclusive practices and ethics from one sphere into others, both in society and across the state-society divide. Along the way there will be obstacles and set backs, as well as whirlpools and eddies of anti-pluralist froth. But that too is the new plurality: there is and never will be any blissfully multicultural end to history. But to recognize this fact is not to succumb to pessimism but to find a practical path toward hope. Building the new Western pluralism work is not a distant dream. The work begins in the here and now, and in as many fields as pluralist-minded actors are able. This, our research would suggest, is the only way forward, and the march has long since begun.

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Robert Hefner
Robert W. Hefner is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs at Boston University.  He has done research on religion and plurality in Southeast Asia since the late 1970s, and has been involved in projects on the comparative study of Christians, Muslims, and civic-pluralist co-existence in Western and Asian societies since the 1990s.  His books include Pentecostalism in the 21st Century (2012) and Sharia Politics: Law and Society in the Modern Muslim World (2011).
Contending Modernities article

A Muslim Response to Pope Francis’s Environmental Encyclical: Laudato Si’


Pope Francis’s environmental encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care For Our Common Home, which was officially released on 18 June 2015, is undoubtedly one of the most important interventions in twenty first century campaigns for environmental justice. It is not surprising that the 184-page document, released in eight languages, took more than 18 months to draft. This second papal encyclical by Pope Francis has already had a significant impact on shifting the global debate in favour of those who advocate that humanity should act with greater care for our common home. This was clearly in evidence at the discussions that took place at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21) which convened in Paris from 30 November to 11 December 2015.

Moreover, Laudato Si’ has had a ripple effect within the interfaith community. The imminent release of Laudato Si’ inspired the issuing of a statement in June by more than 330 rabbis in a Rabbinic Letter on the Climate Crisis. Laudato Si’ no doubt also inspired the Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change released in Istanbul in August 2015.

I concur with Muslim scholars such as Joseph Lumbard, Anas Malik and Ibrahim Ozdemir, who have each engaged with Laudato Si’, that the important themes in Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment resonates well with the teachings of Islam. Here I would like to highlight only two of them.

First and foremost, one of the most significant aspects of Laudato Si’ is that it frames the issue of environmental conservation within a framework of justice. Laudato Si’ is a document about justice with a focus on the environment, rather than the other way around. Pope Francis sees the issue of climate change through the eyes of the poor and this is the key hermeneutic or interpretive lens. In other words, the pontiff wants the economic, social and environmental world orders to be fairer to the poorest of humanity.

Laudato Si’ criticizes consumerist, profit-seeking economies, and emphasizes acute sensitivity to debt, inequality, and poverty, and suggests differentiated responsibilities based on wealth and ability. Compassion and justice require voices to speak up for the most vulnerable and marginalized – those often left voiceless, those who have been pushed into poverty, those who have been denied access to food, water and other basic human rights, those who stand to suffer the most from climate change, while having contributed the least to the problem. The social, economic and environmental dimensions cannot be considered in isolation, but should be treated integrally as a complex joint crisis. These social justice concerns resonate fully with the teachings of Islam.

It is most eloquently depicted in the Glorious Qur’an in Surah al-Rahman, chapter 55, verses 7-9, where God, the Lord of Compassionate Justice, proclaims:

God has raised the cosmos,
And set up (for all things) the balance.
So do not transgress the balance.
Weigh, therefore, (your deeds) with justice,
And cause no loss in the balance!

From an Islamic perspective, the environmental crisis facing humanity today can be viewed as a symptom of a deeper spiritual malaise. This spiritual malaise has come about through extravagant and consumerist lifestyles that have transgressed the balance between humans and nature. An imbalance or altering of the mizan (balance) has taken place at the individual, social and global levels and this is now being reflected in the environmental crisis. Moreover, it is significant to note that in the above verses of the Qur’an the balance can only be restored if humans act with justice and equity (qist).

A second novel theme that Laudato Si’ takes up is that of acknowledging the existential rights of those with whom we share this planet—namely animals and plants etc.—and, more importantly, recognizing their spiritual essence. In the sixth chapter of the encyclical, Pope Francis writes that humanity can “discover God in all things.” Hence, the pontiff asserts, “there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face.”(No. 233)

Interestingly, in order to drive home and substantiate this point, in footnote 159 of the encyclical, Pope Francis credits a ninth century Muslim Sufi mystic Amir al-Khawas for the concept of nature’s “mystical meaning.” In his novel theological perspective Amir al-Khawas was obviously inspired by the abundance of Qur’anic verses that depict the natural environment in this manner. The Muslim scholar, Joseph Lumbard in his response to Laudato Si’ has provided the following striking examples of Qur’anic verses wherein God affirms the spiritual essence of our natural environment. The Qur’an proclaims, “whatsoever is in the heavens and on the earth glorifies God” (59:1; 61:1; 62:1; 64:1). “The stars and the trees prostrate” (55:6), “the thunder hymns His praise” (13:13), and “unto God prostrates whosoever is in the heavens and whosoever is on the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the trees, and the beasts” (22:18). In these and many other verses, the whole of creation is presented as a Divine symphony, for “there is no thing, save that it hymns His praise, though you do not understand their praise. Truly He is Clement, Forgiving.” (Q17:44)”

According to Argentinian priest Father Augusto Zampini, “it is certainly unusual for a Pope to cite a Muslim Mystic in support of his theology of environmental transcendence, but for those who have known Pope Francis since his days in the slums of Argentina this shows his personal touch on the encyclical.” By quoting Amir al-Khawas, Fr. Zampini argues Pope Francis is “inviting all human beings to transcend, to go out of themselves and therefore to improve the relationship that we have with other people, with the Earth, with God.” Moreover, Fr. Zampini contends that through his citing of a Muslim Mystic “Pope Francis is trying to foster ecumenical and interfaith dialogue about shared spirituality”. Such a view is confirmed by the following quote from Laudato Si where Pope Francis emphasizes the importance of interconnectedness and shared spirituality; “Everything is connected. Concern for the environment this needs to be joined to a sincere love for our fellow human beings and an unwavering commitment to resolving the problems of society.” (No. 240)

In conclusion, it is my considered view that through Laudato Si’ Pope Francis has inaugurated another constructive platform for credible faith and secular leaders to enter into renewed dialogue on the critical question of climate change and discuss ways in which we can bring ourselves closer to living in harmony and reverence with nature. Moreover, by locating such a conversation within the broader framework of Pope Francis’s theology of compassion for the poor, which offers a powerful social critique of our global culture of consumerism, covetousness, and opulence – interreligious dialogue should find even greater resonance among Muslims.

It is my sincere hope that more Muslim scholars will take up the dialogical challenge presented in Laudato Si’ in a comparable spirit of reverence and hospitality with which the twelfth century Muslim leader, Sultan al-Kamil, welcomed Saint Francis of Assisi from whom the current Pope takes his name. Muslims can and should engage substantively with Laudato Si’ in order to build broad solidarity with meaningful global commitments for the collective good, through responsible stewardship of the earth.

*English translations of the Qur’anic verses are the authors own.

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A. Rashied Omar
A. Rashied Omar is associate teaching professor of Islamic studies and peacebuilding in the Keough School’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He also is a fellow of the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion. In addition to being a university-based researcher and teacher, Omar serves as imam (religious minister) at the Claremont Main Road Mosque in Cape Town, South Africa, and a trustee of the Institute for the Healing of Memories in South Africa
Contending Modernities article

The Challenge of Updating Archaic Doctrine


Contending Modernities co-director Ebrahim Moosa’s recently published op-ed in the Washington Post, My madrassa classmate hated politics. Then he joined the Islamic State, provides a timely case study of a successful South African imam’s unlikely immigration to Syria to join the Islamic State. Reflecting on the way that Rashid Moosagie “surrendered the orthodox commitment about which he had exhorted me [in his years as a madrassa student] and adopted the very idea he had mocked: a toxic version of political Islam on steroids”, Moosa rues the failure of mainstream Islam to diffuse the theologically toxic doctrines which are used as a platform of legitimacy and recruitment for extremist groups.

The theme of Islamic orthodoxy’s “archaism in theology and ethics”, and the need for “new interpretations of Islamic law based on current realities”, was expounded upon in Moosa’s Orlando Sentinel op-ed, Update of archaic doctrine should accompany censure, last week. Moosa decries “the absence of serious efforts to replace troublesome doctrines” — a major factor hindering the success of strategies designed to combat extremism — arguing that “when idolatry of method is identical to the truth, then it promises the forfeiture of meaningful ethical outcomes.” Therefore, the project to “restore moral common sense in Muslim moral philosophy and theology”, Moosa argues, should be a priority in long-term efforts to address the extremism of the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

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Ebrahim Moosa
Ebrahim Moosa is Mirza Family Professor of Islamic Thought and Muslim Societies in Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs and Department of History. He co-directs Contending Modernities with Atalia Omer and Scott Appleby. Moosa’s interests span both classical and modern Islamic thought with a special focus on Islamic law, history, ethics and theology. He is the author of Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination, winner of the American Academy of Religion’s Best First Book in the History of Religions (2006), and What is a Madrasa? (2015).
Field Notes article

Historicity and Discursivity, Religious and Secular: Responding to the Rome Conference 2015


Religious and secular traditions are both historical and discursive. By this, I mean that they develop over time in response to internal and external debates, and they react to contestations and pressures.

Because of this historicity and discursivity of religious and secular traditions, we should be mindful of our human fallibility. We are limited in our capacities to render a full and final conception of something as complex as the human person.

Such epistemological humility is often missing from both secular and religious accounts of the human person. Exegetes of these traditions are embedded within certain social imaginaries and it is through these frames that they engage the resources of their tradition. By calling for discursivity, I mean to stress the internal pluralities within traditions, pluralities that are at times in tensions with elite and official articulations of norms. I also mean to highlight ways of negotiating competing values and influences, as well as allowing extra-traditional resources (such as human rights) to influence processes of self-interrogation and innovation from within the tradition. Rather than fixating on the authority of past authorities and their social imaginaries, the discursive approach negotiates conceptions of the human person by way of historicizing and complexly rereading the tradition.

The poetry of Muhammad Iqbal provides one entry point to this modest epistemological contention with the question of the sources authorizing the human person. Iqbal believed that the Qur’an invites readers to full self-consciousness, to a spirituality that is deeply embedded in human self-realization. For Iqbal, to realize one’s selfhood is akin to one’s resurrection.

Turning to my call for epistemological humility and for discursivity clearly raises challenges to secular scientism as well as related secular reductive accounts of the human person. There is an overlap in my position with the position pursued by my colleagues Charlie Camosy and Maura Ryan. My position, however, also challenges the inclination of some religious respondents to contend with this type of secularity by offering a reactionary reification of past religious authorities by deploying past social imaginaries as a panacea to the present. I am agnostic about such mechanistic approaches. I will be more comfortable with a deep and organic discursive engagement with the past as I do in my book, Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination.

This line of critical engagement with the past opens up the possibility for certain forms of self-interrogation on the part of religious traditions. Accordingly, the operative mode in which contending with modernities proceeds is not antagonistic, but rather one that is potentially mutually transformative, in terms of both religious and secular discursive traditions. Talal Asad in his work clearly acknowledges this kind of mutual transformation.

This mutually transformative angle likewise facilitates the related possibility of interrogating religious resources as more than a countercultural force for good. Often religious discourses stand on the margins of ever-increasing mechanization and autonomization of the person within hegemonic secular discourses driven by economistic discursivities and their related social imaginaries. This secular and reductive challenge requires a response from religious traditions that is non-reactionary. This lends itself to a contextualized hermeneutical analysis that is internally consistent and historically relevant and that relates to norms of pluralism and human rights as a cross-cultural discursive secular tradition.

Viewing religious and secular traditions historically and discursively requires that we engage the normativity of secularist humanisms and their interpretations of human flourishing and self-fulfillment. By pursuing this line of discursivity we then have a better possibility of developing more robust normative accounts that engage not only with the riches of our religious traditions but also profit and better understand the plural but normatively informed commitments of our secular interlocutors.

 

Array
Ebrahim Moosa
Ebrahim Moosa is Mirza Family Professor of Islamic Thought and Muslim Societies in Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs and Department of History. He co-directs Contending Modernities with Atalia Omer and Scott Appleby. Moosa’s interests span both classical and modern Islamic thought with a special focus on Islamic law, history, ethics and theology. He is the author of Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination, winner of the American Academy of Religion’s Best First Book in the History of Religions (2006), and What is a Madrasa? (2015).
Deadly Violence & Conflict Transformation article

On Religion and Violence


The rise of ISIL and the so-called Islamic State in 2014 has given prominence to discussions of religious violence in the media, with much emphasis placed on questions of the relationship between Islam and violence. In his speech to the nation on 10 September 2014, President Obama restated his longstanding view that no one who commits violent atrocities in the name of religion can be considered an authentic believer. Similarly, Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium affirms that in the face of “disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalizations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.” Others, however, have responded negatively to such statements, citing, violence in the Qur’an, religious leaders who have promoted violence, and contemporary and historical cases of religious violence linked to Islam.

While I think that no one can judge who is an authentic or non-authentic believer, I also tend to disagree with the latter view, which seems to lean towards a deterministic account of the relation between religion—in this specific case Islam—and violence. The succinct reflections I am about to draw follow from a study that Ron Hassner and I have conducted over the years on Jewish violence.

To begin with, our thesis contrasts with three views that prevail among students of religious violence.  First, those who adopt a deterministic view see violence as inherent in the very institution of religion and traceable to its deep structure and primordial essence.  This view trivializes historical circumstances and leaves actors with little to no agency.  A second group of scholars attribute a violent core to particular religious traditions.  They distinguish between inherently peaceful religious movements and inherently violent ones.  The devotees of the latter are said to be doomed to violence by the immanent nature of their religion. Third, those who adopt a quasi-Marxist or instrumentalist view see religion as an infinitely flexible tool at the disposal of rational agents who engage in violence for practical reasons. In this account, religion is epiphenomenal—a medium for strategic or materialist motives.

In contrast to the static and reductionist theories above, our approach emphasizes the dialectical nature of violence in a religious tradition.  We do not view religion as fully constraining.  Actors engage in a constant evaluation, selection, and reinterpretation of religious ideas from an ever-growing reservoir and, in so doing, contribute to that reservoir.  At the same time, we do not envision believers as cynical and opportunistic actors, unconstrained in exploiting religious tradition at will, distorting and undermining its content as they see fit.  Instead, we view religious tradition as both adaptable and bounded.  Though its boundaries may change gradually over time in response to the choices agents make, they also place limits on what these agents can justify at any point in time.

Our intention is not to depict Judaism, Christianity or Islam as violent traditions.  Nor is it our intention to portray any of the above traditions as non-violent.  The reality is far more complex, as it is in all religious traditions.  Religious tradition includes an abundance of material that has clearly violent implications, but also a profusion of materials that support a non-violent ethic.  Religious motifs are as apparent in the past and present struggle against violence as they are in justifying such violence.  Most contemporary believers have no violent tendencies. In today’s world, not only are there religious movements dedicated to opposing violence but several of the most prominent members of the peace camp justify their conciliatory, moderate, compassionate and dovish positions by means of religious ethics and base their resistance to aggression on sacred texts.

Religious violence is, firstly, violence sponsored or performed by individuals or groups who self-define and are identified by those around them as religious. Secondly, these actors account for their violence in a religious language, invoking religious symbols and referencing religious norms and values.

Tradition, including religious tradition, is a reservoir of ideas and symbols, norms and values, information and moods, handed down from generation to generation and stored in written and oral texts or objects, available for contemporary cultural, social or political use. Past tradition is not just a fixed rigid body—a fossil—imposing itself on passive present consumers of tradition. It is a vital and open-ended organism that lends itself to a wide variety of understandings and manipulations.

The Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions ingeniously preserved a harmony among countless interpretations, homilies, metaphors, sayings, ethical teachings, legends, and stories, which together constituted the material contained within the sacred texts. This included a fair amount of categorical, embellished, and provocative statements which, in their wider contexts, were considered acceptable despite their problematic nature.  With the help of irony and historical perspective, these putatively ridiculous, bizarre, offensive or violent materials could be assimilated tolerably without causing any damage.  Moreover, religious tradition tended to view many passages from the multi-layered Scriptures as general ethical teachings or abstract pedagogical lessons rather than as directives for uncompromising activities or as the foundations of specific political agendas.

All these canonical texts provided a wealth of ideas that proved crucial in the tradition’s survival.  They can be said to contain everything:  Arguments, on all their variants, including their opposites.  This includes an abundance of materials that support violence and an abundance of materials that oppose it.  In other words, this reservoir, limited but large, could be harnessed by a wide range of ideological leanings or historical requirements.  It could legitimate a vast array of interests and moral stances by providing them with a “traditional” authority.

Contemporary users of tradition are not traditional but traditionalist, which means that they can view tradition from a self-conscious, voluntary, selective, adjustive and creative stance.  The traditionalist project confronts tradition with an attitude that ranges from conservation to innovation. Naturally traditionalists that harness tradition to achieve their objectives tend to repudiate its inventive and adaptable nature and have uncompromising pretensions of faithfully returning the present to what they grasp as the authentic representation of the past.

Contrary to its self and public image, present-day religiosity, including the varieties of Orthodoxy, is not traditional but traditionalist. Modern text-centered Jews, Christians and Muslims, like many other traditionalists, rummage through the tremendous archives of their past, choose an existing principle—often subterranean or marginal—and bring it to the surface, to center stage.  This can represent a change in emphases and degrees of legitimization, wrought by presenting a principle outside of its original context in which it might have been balanced or restrained by others.

In the traditional past, textual interpretations were flexible, variegated and had various layers and streams, sometimes contradictory, that, nonetheless, coexisted side by side.  This is what gave religious tradition a richness that facilitated its endurance and customization to individuals, groups and situations.  The traditionalists lost something of this Darwinian survivalist potential due to their proclivity for selective, unambiguous, and obligatory interpretation.  Materials which were “soft” in their original contexts were hardened by the present-day Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox. Legendary materials were transformed at a stroke into theological principles or authoritative commandments.  Believers in pursuit of inspiration and legitimation for their violent tendencies singled out a certain idea out of the many contained in the storehouse of their religion, adopted it and genuinely adhered to it as if it were the embodiment of the only consistent and pure Judaism, Christianity or Islam.

In hindsight, it can be hard to distinguish elements that expressed a purely religious rationale to begin with, from elements that were grounded in a social, political, or economic rationale, but that gradually assumed a religious status. It was a testimony to a realistic and responsible reading of history and a manifestation of adaptability to real-political constraints in its original context, that turned into an a priori religious principle, binding under all circumstances.

In the last two generations, some of these very same categorical imperatives were interpreted anew in a way that turned their practical implications on their head. Radical changes in historical circumstances allowed new understandings of the sacred legacy, particularly with regard to religious violent activism, that were in fact a resuscitation of long-forgotten interpretations.

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Gideon Aran
Gideon Aran is professor of sociology and anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research focuses on the social scientific study of religion as well as extremism, militancy and violence. His most recent academic publications focus on Jewish religious violence, religiosity and super-religiosity. Aran was a visiting fellow at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies for the Fall 2014 semester, where he conducted analysis of an extensive field study of terrorism in Israel/Palestine (forthcoming, University of California Press).
Authority, Community & Identity article

Call for Research Proposals: Contending Modernities Working Group on Indonesia


munim
Contending Modernities, an interdisciplinary research and education initiative based at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, is currently developing a working group on Indonesia focusing on the theme of Authority, Community and Identity. The working group will explore and analyze the complex relationships between the various contending authorities, communities and identities that have shaped, and been shaped by, religious life at both the societal and state levels.

Call for Proposals

Contending Modernities invites scholars, experts and activists to submit research proposals that explore the conditions for the possibility of peaceful coexistence among diverse ethnic and religious communities in Indonesia, through a wide range of engagement with religious and secular forces. Here, coexistence is understood not simply as peacefully living side by side, but as involving some degree of interaction and cooperation across the lines of religious and ethnic divisions. Recognizing the complexity inherent within diverse social contexts, and that the conditions that make peaceful co-existence possible could vary from one place to another, we aim to focus on possibilities as a lens by which coexistence in intricate social contexts can be better understood. To this end, the working group will examine and analyze the possibilities of conflict transformation, peacebuilding and peacekeeping in both post-conflict and relatively long-held peaceful societies, assessing and evaluating a wide range of efforts and activities undertaken by various actors to build and maintain peace.

We are especially interested in research that (1) investigates how various religious (Muslim and Christian) and secular forces collaborate, contend, negotiate, and at times compete with one another, both within and across traditions, and (2) pays a close attention to local voices, perspectives and questions about what makes peaceful coexistence possible in such a complex intersection between contending authorities, communities and identities. The thematic focus on peaceful coexistence can also be seen as a lens through which the changing dynamics of authority, community and identity in Indonesia can be addressed, for “who prevails” in this contention and contestation will have major impacts on how religious diversity and freedom are managed in Indonesia.

Researchers whose proposals are selected will form the core team of the Indonesian working group and will engage in research, colloquium, conferences and the production of publications throughout the duration of the 3-year project.

Key Issues

Possible key issues may include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • The state management of religion
  • Changing dynamics in majority-minority relations
  • Muslim-Christian relations: Confrontation and cooperation
  • Contending authorities, communities and identities in post-conflict societies
  • Religious radicalization and its impact on the family (especially on youth and/or women)
  • Pluralism and ethno-religious conflicts
  • Resisting religious radicalism through peace education

In developing a research proposal on any of the above themes, researchers are encouraged to consider the following guiding questions: What makes peaceful coexistence possible in the modern context? How will the research address in one way or the other the changing dynamics of authority, community and identity in Indonesia?

Proposal Requirements

Each proposal (2,000 words) shall consist of the following:

Research Outlook:

  • What is the project’s working title?
  • What are the main research questions that you wish to explore?
  • How is your research proposal relevant to the main themes of authority, community, and identity?
  • What research has been carried out on the proposed theme and what needs to be explored further?

Research Methodology:

  • How do you envisage conducting the research?
  • How will data be collected?
  • What research activities will be conducted? (Field research, workshops, focus group discussions, etc.)
  • What methodological and ethical considerations need to be explored?

Deliverables:

  • What kind of products do you expect to produce? (e.g. Scholarly products such as monographs, journal articles; curricular materials; accessible writing for a wider audience; scholarship in service of the people)
  • How do you envisage managing and overseeing the successful production of deliverables? 

Timeline:

  • Please provide a detailed three-year timeline

Budget:

  • Please provide a detailed budget for the research project

Important Dates:

  • Deadline for submission of research proposal: December 15, 2014
  • Notification of selection/acceptance: January 2015
  • Confirmation of participation: February 2015
  • First meeting at Notre Dame: April 16-17, 2015

Contact:
Please contact Mun’im Sirry with any questions and for further information.

Mun’im Sirry
1135 Flanner Hall
University of Notre Dame, IN 46556
USA

Email: msirry@nd.edu;
Phone: 1(574)631-1796

 

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Mun’im Sirry
Contending Modernities article

Islam, Catholicism and Modernity: Evangelii Gaudium and Muslim-Christian Dialogue


Christian-Muslim relations have followed a sinuous path throughout the centuries. At times they have provided reason for hope, and at others they have encountered stumbling blocks in the path to mutual understanding. While the Second Vatican Council seemed to pave the way to a more accepting and opening dialogue, Pope Benedict XVI’s Regensburg speech, and the baptism of an Egyptian journalist who converted from Islam, were perceived as provocation in interreligious dialogue circles, but received support from some.

In this context, the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium is presented on both sides as a new step in the history of Christian-Muslim understanding. In his response, focusing on the section of the exhortation entitled “Social dialogue as a contribution to peace” (paragraphs 238 to 258), Dr. A. Rashied Omar underlines Pope Francis’ specific commitment to dialogue and the fact that he has earned “popular admiration” among Muslims, in contrast to Pope Benedict XVI whose relationship with Islam and Muslims was viewed as far more troubled.

While the goals and values of Christianity and Islam seem to be wide and disparate, there are frequent points of convergence. Pope Francis highlights the Catholic traditional concepts of the common good, integral development (paragraph 240), natural law, the supreme value of the human person at every stage of life (paragraph 242), ethical commitment (paragraph 252), the social dimension of the Gospel message (paragraph 258), and liberation and promotion of the poor (paragraph 187). Dr. Omar highlights references to genuine morality, work on the roots of violence, and social critiques of our global culture of consumerism, covetousness, and opulence.

Along with Pope Francis (paragraph 253), Dr. Omar acknowledges that the religious freedom of Christian minorities is “a matter of grave concern which urgently needs to be taken up more honestly and robustly”. Moreover, he notes that Pope Francis has made his plea for the rights of Christian minorities in countries of Islamic tradition in a “judicious and sensitive manner”, while at the same time expressing the need for Christians to embrace Muslim immigrants in Europe with affection and respect.

Notwithstanding these lines of understanding, it is possible to notice some gaps in the discourse used by Pope Francis and Dr. Omar vis-à-vis the secular world and, in particular, the modern right to freedom of conscience.

Neither Pope Francis nor Dr. Omar makes reference to the right of freedom of conscience, which was mentioned in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) along with freedom of worship and freedom to choose one’s religion. Significantly, it is not mentioned in the Apostolic Exhortation. Perhaps the concern that freedom of conscience might be interpreted as the freedom to pursue “purely individual religious experiences” (paragraph 254), or that it might pave the way to “atheistic immanentism” is behind this silence. This has been a constant fear within the Catholic magisterium, which generally differentiates freedom from civil coercion in matters of religion on the one hand, and freedom from religion on the other.

Dr. Omar understands the “moral standard of tolerance, dialogue and compassion” set in the Qur’an (22:40), as necessary to uphold the rights of a legal minority to freedom of worship.  He also calls for leaders to overcome the prevailing interpretation of the Islamic law on apostasy, mentioning the efforts of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. However, he overlooks the fact that the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, remains the reference for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation—specifically Article 10 which states: “Islam is the religion of unspoiled nature (fitra). It is prohibited to exercise any form of compulsion on man or to exploit his poverty or ignorance in order to convert him to another religion or to atheism.” This Article fails to recognize the right to convert, in as much as it lacks a proper foundation in man’s freedom of conscience.  The recent debate in the Tunisian National Assembly—particularly regarding Article 6, with its focus on the State’s commitment to the protection of the sacred, and the prohibition of any offense thereto—proved that legislating for freedom of conscience in some Muslim majority countries can be still a stumbling block.

Until now, representatives of Islam and Catholicism have allowed this important issue, which has important anthropological implications, to remain in the shadows. The anthropology underneath “freedom of conscience” and “religious freedom” is not exactly the same, and ought to be differentiated. Freedom of religion presupposes a notion of the human as a naturally religious being, who is inclined by nature to believe in and worship God. Some Islamic scholars go as far as saying that mankind is by his or her own nature (fitra) Muslim.  Freedom of conscience, on the other hand, presupposes an idea of the human as a thinking being, with no such natural proclivity toward belief in God. It allows for the possibility for man to believe or not to believe.

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Dominique Avon
Dominique Avon  is Professor of Modern History at the Université du Maine, France. In 2014, he was a visiting scholar at the University of Akron, Ohio. Specializing in the History of 20th Century Religion, he has taught in Egypt (1992-1994) and in Lebanon (2004-2005). He runs the international network HEMED.  Avon is the author of Hezbollah: A History of the “Party of God”, (Harvard University Press, 2012) with A-T. Khatchadourian.
Contending Modernities article

A New Beginning


Evangelii Gaudium goes beyond merely providing an introduction to interreligious dialogue from the perspective of the new “Poverello” of Rome, Pope Francis. It is, and I feel sure of this, an emphatic proposal for interreligious dialogue to be reframed as a duty for religious communities, and an essential condition to the establishment and maintenance of peace in the world.

Dialogue as a Duty

Pope Francis’ choice of words in paragraph 250 of his Apostolic Exhortation is of particular importance:

“Interreligious dialogue is a necessary condition for peace in the world, and so it is a duty for Christians as well as for other religious communities”. (250)

In his inaugural official teaching to present and future generations of the Church, Pope Francis’ conclusion that interreligious dialogue “is a duty”, and an imperative for peace is quite simply revolutionary as it posits interreligious dialogue as a responsibility and obligation for Christians and other religious communities alike. Such a statement provides firm grounding for future discourses on interreligious dialogue by explicitly emphasizing its necessity, and moving it from the realm of a few committed experts to that of all Christians.

Since Vatican II, where dialogue became accepted as a responsibility for the Catholic Church, it has generally been considered as a special service of small groups of enlightened Christians. By moving dialogue from being exclusively the realm of well-grounded experts on interreligious matters, to the general population of the Church, Pope Francis raises the stakes—now dialogue is a duty for each Christian and for each person of good will.

I have always been intimately convinced that dialogue is a condition for the living of a committed Christian life, because since the time of Pope Paul VI the understanding of charity has developed to acknowledge that it is rooted in dialogue. Pope Francis takes this further by positioning dialogue as part of each Christian’s vocation in the world. Moreover, Pope Francis, as a faithful follower of Saint Francis of Assisi, conceives the attainment of peace in the world as a duty for Humanity—an inner, spiritual and even dogmatic goal for human beings. Peace—both internal and societal— is, therefore, situated at the heart of faith.

Although Pope Francis presents dialogue as a duty, it is important to recognize the hindrances to dialogue, both interpersonal and structural, in a world that prioritizes economic development and prosperity as the primary means for achieving and maintaining peace. We live in a world of differences—not least, religious differences—and in this context dialogue is hindered by unfamiliarity and distrust. We have to begin with the recognition that the majority of peoples lived experience is one of not feeling naturally disposed to dialogue across divides. That is why Pope Francis speaks in terms of duty. Dialogue may not be comfortable, but it is necessary.

Sharing, above All

Having emphasized the duty and moral imperative of dialogue, Pope Francis moves on to focus on the human heart:

This dialogue is in first place a conversation about human existence or simply, as the bishops of India have put it, a matter of “being open to them, sharing their joys and sorrows”. In this way we learn to accept others and their different ways of living, thinking and speaking. (250)

Duty now becomes an inner necessity—one of the heart. This moral imperative is shown as a human conversation or, put another way, a deep sharing. This is a real development, as dialogue is moved from being a primarily intellectual and superficial exercise to one of real and truthful sharing—be it religious, spiritual, intellectual, or otherwise.

Working and spending time amongst Sufis, I have observed that spiritually-minded people and mystics live this deep level of sharing at a deeper level than many others. Again, this stage of spiritual life assumes a theological value in the eyes of Francis. Dialogue is a conversation about human existence or “being open to others, sharing their joys and sorrows.” When a person is open to others, and shares in their joys and sorrows, he or she no longer lives as before because he or she experiences the richness of Humanity. Here, Pope Francis is theologically consecrating human experience. I have experienced this when partaking in some Muslim celebrations, in particular with Sufis—moments where I have really felt the power of life, the energy of others, and I have been moved by the commitment of another man or woman who have devoted their entire life to spreading Islam. As a Dominican priest, and a deep believer in Christ, I hold fast to “my truth” in Christ—and yet I am able to share their joys and sorrows.  Whoever speaks of sharing really means reciprocity. Sharing—real, authentic and genuine sharing—is the only ground for interreligious dialogue, otherwise any attempt to do so would be just pragmatism or simply polite courtesy.

The principle of reciprocity is reflected in the teachings and spiritual traditions of both Islam and Christianity, and is rooted in deep sharing. When you share, you are together—the other is with you and you are with him. Friendship is, in this perspective, an absolute need for learning to share and to be reciprocal. Friendship needs two people, two societies, two nations, and requires sharing, above all.

The essential nature of dialogue and deep sharing across religious divides is reflected by A. Rashied Omar in his recent blog post: “I believe that it should be the responsibility of faith leaders, Christians, Muslims and those of other faiths, to offer deeper and far more ethically and scripturally grounded visions of a truly humanistic and compassionate world and to make strategic interventions to shift the balance in favor of such genuine morality.”

From Sharing to Action

Sharing must lead to action: a real and deep initiative. The dogmatic goal of interreligious dialogue, lived through sharing experienced in a broader human community, gives space for action.  As Pope Francis states, “Efforts made in dealing with a specific theme can become a process in which, by mutual listening, both parts can be purified and enriched. These efforts, therefore, can also express love for truth.” (250). Only in active service to Humanity can we go back to the dogmatic foundations of interreligious dialogue. If we cannot succeed in constructing real bridges, true peace, shared feelings, and mutual openness, our activities will remain at the level of superficial engagement. Humanity needs women and men who are engaged in the duty of interreligious dialogue lived through profound shared experience with the goal of service to the common good. Pope Francis’ words provide a vision of a world where interreligious dialogue and peace are not exclusive to a minority of believers, or idealistic principles that are far removed from reality.

Interreligious dialogue is not just an academic question—it has very real implications for the establishment of peace in the world. Dialogue needs to be lived and shared by more than just scholars. Pope Francis’ words carry significance for all Christians, and are a call for dialogue through shared experiences, commitments, and actions carried out together.

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Alberto Ambrosio
Alberto Fabio Ambrosio is an Italian Dominican priest and a Temporary Teaching and Research Assistant at University of Lorraine. Ambrosio completed his doctoral studies in Modern History at Paris-Sorbonne University in 2007, focusing on the history of Ottoman Sufism. In 2013 he received the Habilitation to teach Theology from the University of Metz. His publications include: Soufisme et christianisme. Entre histoire et mystique (2013); Petite mystique du dialogue (2013); and Vie d’un derviche tourneur.  Doctrine et rituels du soufisme au XVIIe siècle, (2010).
Contending Modernities article

A Muslim Response to Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium


“Pope Francis resonates with the Muslim World much like the Saint of Assisi from whom he takes his name,”—this was how Imam Mohamad Bashar Arafat, president of the Islamic Affairs Council of Maryland, described his visit to the Vatican in October 2013. Saint Francis of Assisi is widely credited as being the first Catholic leader to engage a prominent Muslim Sultan in dialogue in 1219—a point well documented by Paul Moses in The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam and Francis of Assisi’s Mission of Peace. Imam Arafat’s sanguine portrayal of Pope Francis’s growing stature in the Muslim World is corroborated by a number of experts on Catholic-Muslim relations, including Fr. Thomas Michel S.J., Senior Fellow at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University.

Notwithstanding this new optimism in Catholic-Muslim relations, it is my considered view that Muslim leaders, in particular, need to do much more to reach out, engage, and embrace Pope Francis’ invitation to interfaith dialogue and solidarity. For this indeed is the demand of our times.

A Constructive Platform for Renewed Dialogue

An invaluable opportunity for such dialogical engagement and solidarity presents itself in Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), issued on 24 November 2013. Evangelii Gaudium is one of the most significant Vatican proclamations to appear since the election of Pope Francis in March 2013, and articulates the theological vision and pastoral mission sustaining the Papacy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Granted, it has only been three months since the issuing of this significant Vatican proclamation, yet it is my hope that some Muslim scholars and leaders will engage with its theological foundations and perspectives in a substantive and thoughtful manner. I believe Evangelii Gaudium could serve as a vital platform for Pope Francis’ resonance among Muslims to be transformed from popular admiration to a deeper encounter and embrace in the theological, social, and spiritual realms.

Evangelii Gaudium exhorts the Christian faithful to embark on a renewed journey of sharing the joy of the gospel (No. 9). It reaffirms a Second Vatican Council decree that establishes an essential bond between evangelization and dialogue; “Evangelization and interreligious dialogue, far from being opposed, mutually support and nourish one another” (No. 258). Furthermore, social dialogue is viewed as a necessary condition for peace with justice (No. 239). It is within this context that the invitation to dialogue with states, society, and with other believers who are not part of the Catholic Church is framed (No. 238). Interreligious dialogue “with the followers of Islam takes on great importance, since they are now significantly present in many traditionally Christian countries where they can freely worship and become fully a part of society” (No. 252).

It is also here that the most significant part of Evangelii Gaudium’s proclamation to Islam and Muslims surfaces. Pope Francis speaks to Muslims in the first person, and exhorts them with the following words: “I ask and humbly entreat those [Muslim majority—my insertion] countries to grant Christians freedom to worship and to practice their faith, in light of the freedom which followers of Islam enjoy in Western countries” (No. 253).

This entreaty is not new and was essentially the foundational prop on which Pope Benedict XVI established his troubled relationship with Islam and Muslims. What is new, however, is the judicious and sensitive manner in which Pope Francis makes his plea.

I do not need to dwell here on the perilous nature of the situation of Christian minorities living in Muslim majority countries since experts on the subject have aptly made the case and all fair minded Muslim leaders will readily agree. The religious freedoms of Christian minorities in many Muslim majority countries are appalling and a matter of grave concern which urgently needs to be taken up more honestly and robustly by Muslims engaged in interreligious dialogue.

Elsewhere I have noted the incompatibility of restrictive laws regarding apostasy and religious freedom in many Muslim majority settings, and have called on Muslim scholars and leaders to question the prevailing interpretation of the Islamic law of apostasy and Christian leaders to abandon aid evangelism. An increasing number of Muslim leaders are speaking out against this injustice. For example, at his December 13 2013 Vatican meeting with Pope Francis, Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, head of the Organization of Islamic Co-operation (OIC), stressed the need for “greater efforts from OIC member states to foster respect for religious pluralism and cultural diversity and to counter the spread of bigotry and prejudice.”

The Ethical and Qur’anic Case for Religious Freedom

While it is my considered view that the demand for full religious freedom and greater protection for Christian minorities living in Muslim majority countries is legitimate and requisite, I respectfully disagree with Pope Francis that ‘reciprocity’ should be the driving force for religious freedoms on at least two grounds.

First, it is ethically expedient to argue that Muslim majority countries need to grant Christians freedom to worship and practice their faith in reciprocation of Muslims being granted those freedoms in Western countries. I believe that it should be the responsibility of faith leaders— Christians, Muslims and those of other faiths—to offer deeper and far more ethically and scripturally grounded visions of a truly humanistic and compassionate world and to make strategic interventions in order to shift the balance in favor of such genuine morality. Granting freedom of worship and protecting places of worship is an injunction to all believing Muslims in Chapter 22 verse 40 in the Qur’an, where God clearly proclaims:

If God had not restrained some people by means of others, monasteries, churches, and synagogues and mosques – all in which God’s name is abundantly extolled – would surely have been destroyed. Indeed God comes to the aid of those who come to His aid; verily He is powerful and all-mighty. (Q22:40 – Translation from Arabic by the author.)

It is interesting to note that the explicit wording of the above verses gives precedence to the protection of monasteries, churches and synagogues over that of mosques in order to underline their inviolability and the duty of the Muslim to safeguard them against any desecration or abuse, and protect freedom of belief. (For an depth analysis of the interpretations of this verse by classical Muslim commentators of the Qur’an see: Asma Afsaruddin, “In Defense of All Houses of Worship”, in ed., Sohail H. Hashmi, Just Wars, Holy Wars & Jihads: Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Encounters and Exchanges). It is the proper reading of these and other verses in the Qur’an (2:256; 10:99, & 11:118) that should be invoked in the plea to Muslim majority countries to grant non-Muslim minorities freedom of workshop in their countries. Upholding the teachings of the Qur’an and sacred scriptures, should set the moral standard of tolerance, dialogue and compassion to which we must aspire in striving towards a more just and peaceful world.

Second, should the religious freedoms and opportunities for integration accorded to Muslims by Western countries be the most sublime height of pluralism that we should aspire to? The answer to this question, is of course an unequivocal no! The Runnymede Trust (1997), the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (2002), and the United Nations (2004) have all concluded on the basis of extensive research that there is an alarming rise in religious bigotry and prejudice, which includes the virtual explosion of Islamophobia in Europe and the United States.

To his credit, Pope Francis does explicitly raise the question of the indignities suffered by Muslims in the West in Evangelii Gaudium when he says: “We Christians should embrace with affection and respect Muslim immigrants to our countries” (No. 253). Pope Francis has not only been vocal about the need to embrace with affection and respect Muslim immigrants in Europe—he has practically displayed such compassion with a number of symbolic expressions of this concern. In December 2013, for example, Pope Francis gave Christmas gift packages to 2,000 immigrants, many of whom are Muslims, who live at the Dono di Maria, a shelter within close proximity to the Vatican. In an accompanying message he urged Western countries to welcome and respect immigrants rather than treat them as “pawns on the chessboard of humanity.”

To thwart and mitigate against such political exploitation of the plight of Muslim immigrants in the West, Pope Francis specifically exhorts the faithful in Evangelii Gaudium, to avoid hateful generalizations even in the face of “disconcerting episodes of violence” and “in spite of fundamentalisms on both sides,” because “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence” (No. 253).

An Invaluable Opportunity

It is my considered view that through Evangelii Gaudium Pope Francis has inaugurated a constructive platform for credible Muslim leaders to enter into a renewed dialogue with Catholics on the critical question of interpretations of sacred scripture and the roots of violence in our contemporary world. Moreover, by locating such a conversation within the broader framework of Pope Francis’ theology of compassion for the poor which offers a powerful social critique of our global culture of consumerism, covetousness, and opulence, interreligious dialogue will find even greater resonance among Muslims. It is my sincere hope that more Muslim scholars will take up the dialogical challenge presented in Evangelii Gaudium in a comparable spirit of reverence and hospitality with which the twelfth century Muslim leader, Sultan al-Kamil, welcomed the Saint of Assisi from whom the current Pope takes his name.

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A. Rashied Omar
A. Rashied Omar is associate teaching professor of Islamic studies and peacebuilding in the Keough School’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He also is a fellow of the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion. In addition to being a university-based researcher and teacher, Omar serves as imam (religious minister) at the Claremont Main Road Mosque in Cape Town, South Africa, and a trustee of the Institute for the Healing of Memories in South Africa