The Abrahamic Encounter: Local Initiatives, Large Implications

By Dr. Rob P. Sellers

In these times of increasingly contentious politics and uncivil discourse in the United States, the ongoing encounter of adherents of the Abrahamic faiths in the American heartland offers a model of positive interfaith relations. Edited by a Muslim, a Jew, and a Christian, this volume describes the three goals of the Central Ohio Abrahamic encounter: Enhancing mutual understanding and relationships, disseminating accurate information about the three major Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), and contributing to the general betterment of society. Here is a local story that can inform--even inspire--other communities across the country and around the globe. Topics include beliefs, scripture and interpretation, historical illustrations and legacies, contemporary challenges and possibilities, and group dynamics, especially majority-minority relationships among American Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

This volume will appeal to the growing audience for interfaith resources. The inclusion of several essays by noted religious scholars and leaders, chosen for their significance to the Central Ohio Abrahamic encounter, sets this volume apart from other publications on local initiatives. It is well suited for individual or group study in churches, synagogues, mosques, and interfaith organizations, and can be assigned for undergraduate and graduate/seminary courses on Abrahamic relations or interfaith relations generally.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Dec 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781498276009

Book preview

9781498234610.kindle.jpg

The Abrahamic Encounter

Local Initiatives, Large Implications

Edited by

Mazhar Jalil,

Norman Hosansky,

and Paul D. Numrich

Foreword by Robert P. Sellers

15656.png

The Abrahamic Encounter

Local Initiatives, Large Implications

Copyright © 2016 Wipf and Stock Publishers. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Wipf & Stock

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-4982-3461-0

hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-8664-0

ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-7600-9

Manufactured in the U.S.A. February 14, 2017

Chapters that appeared originally in Muslims and Christians, Muslims and Jews: A Common Past, A Hopeful Future, edited by Marilyn Robinson Waldman (Columbus: Islamic Foundation of Central Ohio, 1992), and Muslims and Jews: Building a Hopeful Future, edited by Norman Hosansky and Mazhar Jalil (Columbus: Islamic Foundation of Central Ohio, 2003), are used by permission.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Foreword by Robert P. Sellers

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Contributors

Introduction by Paul D. Numrich

Part One: Local Initiatives, Large Implications

Chapter 1: The Central Ohio Abrahamic Encounter

Part Two: Circles of Scripture, Community, and Interpretation

Chapter 2: Scripture and Community

Chapter 3: On Scripture and Its Exegesis

Chapter 4: Mary, Mother of Jesus, in Christian and Islamic Traditions

Chapter 5: Jesus in the Qur’an

Chapter 6: People of the Book

Part Three: The Past Is Never Dead

Chapter 7: Historical Perspectives on Christian-Muslim Relations

Chapter 8: Historical Perspectives on Jewish-Muslim Relations

Chapter 9: A Historical Perspective on Jewish-Muslim Relations

Chapter 10: Muslims and Jews in America

Chapter 11: Jewish and Muslim Perspectives on Intermarriage and Gender Roles

Chapter 12: The Moral Obligation of Muslim-Jewish Relations

Chapter 13: Christians as a Majority in the United States

Chapter 14: American Christians and Their Abrahamic Neighbors

From all three editors: To all of the children of Abraham who want to live as friends and neighbors.

From Mazhar Jalil: For my wife Betty, who is sunshine to me in winter, coolness and shade in summer, and who loves reading stories of Prophet Abraham to our children.

From Norman Hosansky: For the memory of my wife Gladys, a child of Abraham who welcomed all with open arms.

From Paul Numrich: For my wife Christine, who visited Abraham’s tomb in Hebron with me.

Foreword

Robert P. Sellers

Interreligious relationship-building, which leads to mutual understanding and acceptance, constructive dialogue, and meaningful cooperation to address common global dilemmas, is the passion of my life. No other path, it seems, can lead us away from the dangerous precipice that threatens to undo the Human Family. Failing to connect positively will only further our stereotypes and misunderstandings, fear and rejection of the Other, arrogant and self-promoting monologues, and disruptive or even deadly confrontations.

That is why, as someone committed unequivocally to the interfaith movement, I am so impressed with the work of the Central Ohio Abrahamic Encounter and with this collection of informative, stimulating essays. While the history and contemporary associations between groups of Baha’is, Buddhists, Confucians, Hindus, Jains, Pagans, Sikhs, Taoists, Zoroastrians, and followers of Indigenous Religions, New Thought, Shinto, or Yoruba certainly fascinate me, I have been an active Christian since childhood and thus am particularly interested in the intersection of the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

I was a small boy in Pensacola, Florida, where religious diversity largely signaled the presence and influence of Protestant and Catholic Christians, although interestingly Temple Beth-El in the town center was the oldest Jewish house of worship in the state. Moving to the larger city of Tampa as a seventh grader, however, I soon became friends with Tommy, a Jewish classmate—and attending his bar mitzvah was the first opportunity I had to experience a religious service somewhere other than in my Baptist church. Going to the synagogue on Shabbat and hearing my friend chant the blessings and read a portion of the Torah from the large scroll on the pulpit whetted my curiosity as a rather sheltered thirteen-year old. Today, more than fifty years after our high school graduation, Tom and I have reestablished our friendship and serve as fellow trustees of the Parliament of the World’s Religions.

The majority of my adult life has been spent internationally, primarily in Indonesia, the nation with the largest Muslim population in the world. For almost a quarter century, my wife, children, and I lived in Muslim neighborhoods where we enjoyed the gracious and kind people who were our friends and acquaintances. During those years, I gradually became aware of the high standards of personal morality and interpersonal respect that guided the lives of most Indonesian Muslims whom we encountered.

More recently, as a scholar-activist participating in local, national, and international organizations, it has been my privilege to develop friendships and to work with fascinating people who are committed to the interfaith movement. We have conducted our deliberations and launched projects from different starting points. The particularities of our belief systems have produced diverse opinions about complicated issues like solutions to climate change or the end of conflict in the Middle East, or about more practical matters such as governance or scheduling, yet we have worked through these alternative perspectives by intentionally treating one another as valued colleagues and genuine friends. What we have gained—far beyond consensus on controversial public statements or agreement on mundane programming decisions—has been the lasting enrichment of our very lives.

It seems to me that my experience of personal growth and interpersonal engagement with followers of other faiths is not unlike what has been experienced by the authors of this volume. Whether through entering one another’s sacred spaces to increase understanding and appreciation for both similarities and differences in worship; sharing life together as individuals or families in homes, across meal tables, or on backyard patios; offering scholarly seminars and conferences to dispel popular myths and provide accurate information; standing in solidarity with mosques, synagogues, or churches damaged by natural disasters or vandalism; or working together on peace projects with elementary school children or teenagers—the Jews, Muslims, and Christians referenced here have given us a model for healing our increasingly xenophobic and fractured society.

This book should be treasured as a valuable resource for the interfaith movement. Its account in Part I of promising multi-religious activities in Central Ohio can be inspiring for grassroots organizations everywhere. The essays in Part II provide helpful and perhaps unfamiliar information concerning textual foundations for these three Peoples of the Book. The examination in Part III of the interfaith relations among these Abrahamic religions—in their historical, contemporary, global, and local manifestations—demonstrates a way forward.

I commend this fine work to your careful reading. The Abrahamic Encounter is not just about Ohio. It is about all of us—and not simply American Jews, Christians, or Muslims. The lessons of interfaith relationships herein hold an important key for building a more productive future for the whole world—a world that, in the mission statement of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, will one day be more just, peaceful, and sustainable. To that end, may we all commit ourselves anew.

Acknowledgements

Many more people have participated in the Central Ohio Abrahamic encounter than appear in this volume. Omissions have been practical or unintentional, for which we beg forgiveness. We are indebted to all the interviewees who informed the story told in chapter 1; the following consented to be named: Rev. Timothy C. Ahrens, Dr. Tarunjit Singh Butalia, Rabbi Harold Berman, Jack Chomsky, Rev. Ward Cornett III, Robert C. Harrod, Norman Hosansky, Mazhar Jalil, Shani Kadis, Dr. John Kashubeck, Jeri Milburn, Dr. Asma Mobin-Uddin, Msgr. Stephan J. Moloney, Dr. Alam Payind, Richard C. Pfeiffer Jr., Rev. Leslie E. Stansbery, Rabbi Michael N. Ungar, and Rabbi Misha Zinkow. Special thanks go to Tariq Jalil for his advice and support, to Tarunjit Butalia for his wise counsel, to the staff at Wipf and Stock Publishers, especially Brian Palmer and Matthew Wimer, for their helpful professionalism, and to Tim Van Meter of Methodist Theological School in Ohio (MTSO) for recommending Wipf and Stock to us. Our interview procedures were approved by the human subjects research committees of MTSO and Trinity Lutheran Seminary and conducted by seminarians Sam Byrd, Jess Peacock, and Rina Shere of MTSO, and Stephen Zeller of Trinity. Ray Olson, Trinity’s Hamma Library Director, and Trinity seminarian Ben Sloss provided valuable expertise on the digital interview files. Trinity seminarians Rick Catrone and Alexandria Long served as research assistants during this project. Alex deserves special commendation for her indispensable contributions to the preparation of this volume.

Abbreviations

Ali—Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Meaning of the Holy Qur’an, 11th ed. (Beltsville, MD: Amana, 2004).

NIV—New International Version translation of the Bible (Zondervan).

NJPS—Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation according to the Traditional Hebrew Text (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985).

RSV—Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Contributors

Fatima Agha Al-Hayani was an instructor in Honors French and Honors English with the Swanton Board of Education in Swanton, Ohio at the time of the original publication of her contribution to this volume. She received a Master degree from the University of Toledo and both Master and PhD degrees from the University of Michigan. She is the author of the articles Arabs and the American Legal System: Cultural and Political Ramifications (1999) and Islam and Science: Contradiction or Concordance (2005).

Jamal A. Badawi is Emeritus Professor at Saint Mary’s University, Halifax. In 2008, Saint Mary’s granted him an Honorary Doctorate of Civil Law in recognition of his contributions to civil society around the world. His publications include Gender Equity in Islam (1995) and Leadership: An Islamic Perspective (co-authored with Beekun Rafiq Issa, 1999). He is a member of the Islamic Juridical Council of North America, the European Council of Fatwa and Research, and the International Union of Islamic Scholars. He received his PhD in personnel management and labor economics from Indiana University in 1970.

Reuven Firestone received his PhD in Near Eastern languages and literatures from New York University in 1988 and his Rabbinic Ordination from Hebrew Union College in 1982. He is Regenstein Professor in Medieval Judaism and Islam at Hebrew Union College and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Religion and Civic Culture (CRCC) and the University of Southern California. He founded the Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement, a joint program of the CRCC, Hebrew Union College, and the Omar Ibn Al-Khattab Foundation. His publications include An Introduction to Islam for Jews (2008) and Who Are the Real Chosen People? (2008).

Tamar Frank was Program Consultant to the Maurice Amado Foundation Sephardic Education Project in Cincinnati, Ohio at the time of the original publication of her contribution to this volume. She received her PhD in medieval studies from Yale University in 1975. She went on to teach at Solomon Schechter Day School in West Orange, New Jersey.

Nancy Heiden worked with interfaith couples in which one partner is Jewish in her position as Project Director of GATEWAYS at the Jewish Community Center of Columbus at the time of the original publication of her contribution to this volume. Previous to that, she taught in the adult education program at Congregation Tifereth Israel in Columbus.

Norman Hosansky received his PhD in organic chemistry from Rutgers University in 1953 and is retired from Chemical Abstracts Service, Columbus, after twenty-six years of service. He is a lay leader of Congregation Tifereth Israel in Columbus and co-edited (with Mazhar Jalil) Muslims and Jews: Building a Hopeful Future (2003). He received the Living Faith Award from the Metropolitan Area Church Council in 2006.

Mazhar Jalil received his PhD in biology from the University of Waterloo, Canada in 1967 and an Alumni of Honour award on the University’s fiftieth anniversary in 2007. He is retired from the Ohio Department of Health, serves as a trustee of Islamic Foundation of Central Ohio in Columbus, and has been a longstanding member of the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio. In 2004, Ohio Governor Bob Taft presented him with the prestigious Martin Luther King Holiday Commission’s Community Building Award for his interfaith work.

Asma Mobin-Uddin is a pediatrician in Central Ohio and a graduate of Ohio State University. She is the author of My Name Is Bilal (2005), The Best Eid Ever (2007), and A Party in Ramadan (2009), and is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She has served as President of the Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and on the Education Committee of the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio.

Paul D. Numrich received his PhD in religion from Northwestern University in 1992 and serves as Professor in the Snowden Chair for the Study of Religion and Interreligious Relations at Methodist Theological School in Ohio and Professor of World Religions and Interreligious Relations at Trinity Lutheran Seminary. His publications include the book The Faith Next Door: American Christians and Their New Religious Neighbors (2009) and the article Christian Sensitivity in Interreligious Relations in The Asbury Journal (2012).

Walter Ruby is Muslim Jewish Program Director for the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. He organized the Foundation’s first national summit of imams and rabbis in New York City in 2007. He has served as a correspondent for the Jerusalem Post and The Forward as well as a contributor to New York Jewish Week and New York Daily News.

Robert P. Sellers, a lifelong Christian and Baptist who received his PhD in theological ethics and world religions from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1993, recently retired as professor of theology at Logsdon Seminary of Hardin-Simmons University. For almost twenty-five years he worked in Indonesia, where he grew to appreciate diverse cultures and ancient religions. Since 2000 he has been committed to the interfaith movement through his membership on commissions of the National Council of Churches, the Baptist World Alliance, and the Parliament of the World’s Religions, which he currently serves as Chair.

Muzammil H. Siddiqi was Director of the Islamic Society of Orange County, California at the time of the original publication of his contribution to this volume. He is a graduate of Islamic University in Medina (Saudi Arabia) and Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama in Lucknow (India). He received his PhD in comparative religion from Harvard University in 1978.

The late R. Marston Speight was Director of the Office on Christian-Muslim Relations of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. and an adjunct faculty member of Hartford Seminary at the time of the original publication of his contribution to this volume. He was ordained in the United Methodist Church in 1963 and received his PhD in the history of religions from Hartford Seminary Foundation in 1970.

Batya Steinlauf is President of both the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington and the Montgomery County (Maryland) Executive’s Faith Community Advisory Group. She also serves as Director of Social Justice Initiatives and Inter-group Relations for the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington. She is a graduate of Jewish Theological Seminary.

Sayyid M. Syeed is National Director of the Office of Interfaith and Community Alliances, Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). He served as President of the Muslim Students Association of U.S.A. and Canada from 1980 to 1983, where he was instrumental in its transition into ISNA. He has also served as Secretary General of the International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations, as General Secretary of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists, and as a founder and Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences. He received his PhD in sociolinguistics from Indiana University in 1984.

Thomas Templeton Taylor was Assistant Professor of History at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio at the time of the original publication of his contribution to this volume. He received his PhD in history from the University of Illinois in 1988. He is the author of The Spirit of the Awakening: The Pneumatology of New England’s Great Awakening in Historical and Theological Context (1990).

The late Marilyn Robinson Waldman was Professor of History and Comparative Studies at Ohio State University at the time of the original publication of her contributions to this volume. She received her PhD in history from the University of Chicago in 1974. She was the author of Toward a Theory of Historical Narrative: A Case Study in Perso-Islamicate Historiography (1980) and Prophecy and Power: Muhammad and the Qur’an in the Light of Comparison (posthumously, 2012).

Introduction

Paul D. Numrich

The state of Ohio has gained national notoriety in the contentious politics of recent decades. In 2010, three Ohio universities started The Ohio Civility Project in order to address the lack of civility in public discourse in the United States. Ohio was chosen because it is a bellwether state in national elections.¹

During these same decades, the central part of the state, around the capital city of Columbus, has quietly modeled positive interfaith relations, especially among the Abrahamic faiths. Everything is local, the saying goes. The story told in this volume is local, but the editors— a Muslim, a Jew, and a Christian—believe that an Abrahamic encounter in the American heartland has national implications. Here is a local story that can inform—even inspire—other communities across the country.

About This Volume

This volume will appeal to the growing audience for interfaith resources, particularly regarding the major Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). Books on Abrahamic relations are plentiful but few derive from local initiatives. The inclusion of several essays by noted religious scholars and leaders, chosen for their significance to the Central Ohio Abrahamic agenda, sets this volume apart from other publications on local initiatives. It is well-suited for individual or group study in churches, synagogues, mosques, and interfaith organizations, and can also be assigned for undergraduate and seminary courses on Abrahamic relations or interfaith relations generally.

In Part I, Local Initiatives, Large Implications, chapter 1 chronicles The Central Ohio Abrahamic Encounter and explores its larger implications as a model for other communities across the United States. In the chapter, I identify the three goals of the Central Ohio Abrahamic encounter (enhancing mutual understanding and relationships, disseminating accurate information about the three major Abrahamic traditions, and contributing to the general betterment of society), trace the history of Abrahamic relations in Central Ohio through two time periods (Jewish-Christian relations from the late 1800s to the 1970s and Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations since the 1980s), identify key strategies and challenges of the Central Ohio Abrahamic encounter, and assess the Central Ohio case as a model of Abrahamic relations. Chapter 1 also describes a series of local public conferences from which several chapters in parts II and III derive. These conferences provide insights into how Central Ohio Abrahamic leaders have determined their own agenda, drawing upon the resources they deem most relevant to their time, context, and faith commitments.

There is good reason for the Islamic designation for Jews and Christians as People of the Book since all three faiths draw deeply from their respective sacred texts for identity and guidance. The five chapters of part II, Circles of Scripture, Community, and Interpretation, explore how these faith communities have been formed by their scriptures and how they interpret scripture vis-à-vis each other.

Chapter 2, Scripture and Community by Tamar Frank, provides a theoretical framework for part II in examining how a religious community’s circle of scripture and traditional interpretation interacts with other circles. Frank exemplifies this interaction by focusing on three reference points in Judaism and Islam (prophecy, scripture, and authoritative interpretation), concluding with the hope that whatever direction our communities take in the future, they will remain open to dialogues and to cooperation for the public benefit.

Reuven Firestone’s On Scripture and Its Exegesis: The Abraham-Ishmael Stories in the Torah and the Qur’an (chapter 3) analyzes stories surrounding Abraham in Jewish and Islamic scriptures in order to highlight common practices used by communities in reading each other’s texts, such as older scripture is interpreted through the lenses of newer scripture and newer claims for sacred scripture can never be acceptable to older traditions if the new claims were made after the canonization of the earlier scripture. Firestone spotlights the variations between Jewish and Muslim versions of the Abraham-Ishmael story, concluding that We must overcome the need to figure out ‘who was right,’ and move on to more important issues.

In chapter 4, Mary, Mother of Jesus, in Christian and Islamic Traditions, R. Marston Speight focuses on the treatments of Mary in the New Testament and the Qur’an, suggesting that it is this Scriptural figure of Mary that draws Muslims and Christians together. Perhaps in mutual contemplation of this holy woman, Speight hopes, we shall together learn to deal more adequately with our religious disagreements.

Chapter 5, Jesus in the Qur’an: Some Similarities and Differences with the New Testament by Muzammil H. Siddiqi, moves the reader from the scriptural figure of Mary to that of Jesus. Siddiqi squarely addresses both similarities and differences between New Testament and qur’anic portrayals of Jesus, as well as key doctrinal disagreements between the two religions. Instead of shying away from discussion, Siddiqi concludes, we should talk about these issues in an atmosphere of friendship and frankness.

Jamal A. Badawi turns our attention to People of the Book: Potential Uniting Themes and Barriers to Unifying Dialogue in chapter 6. Surveying themes found in both