Samer,

Thank you for your response. What you say is true, of course. Your point that Islam was founded for the most part by persons on the outside of Christianity and Judaism but using elements of both, is well taken. There are significant differences in the origins of these religions.

I think I remember hearing the idea that the Jewish People consider Christainity a heretical sect of Judaism around the time when the Pope visited the Synagogue in Rome. On that ocassion, If I'm not mistaken, the Chief Rabbi of Rome thanked the Pope for Christianity's role in spreading the knowledge of the One God. At least I think that I heard or read that.

Has anyone else heard this?

Thanks again.

Steve

JOY!

Please do not let the written expression impede the meaning or the love!

My understanding is that most religious Jews consider Christianity to be a 'knock-off' of Judaism, a group of folks who went way beyond what Judaism believes.

The fact that Christianity has spread far and wide has colored the perspective of many Jews who now consider it an alien faith, not really connected with Judaism as currently practiced.

I too read the comment of the Rabbi who proposed that Christianity has done much to foster belief in the "One God" that is the hallmark of the Jewish faith. (The touchstone prayer of a Jew is the Shamar Is-rael: "Shamar Israel, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echod" = "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is God; the Lord is One.") We Christians can utter the same prayer with full faith and conviction.

But I suspect strongly that the Rabbi was being an extremely polite host and was saying something that represented a core attitude that monotheists are united in their monotheistic beliefs. But it glossed over many very real and very important differences. But that's OK; civilized people do this sort of thing.

I guess that because Christianity is rooted in Jewish theology and beliefs, I am more prone to accept Jewish thought and perspectives than I am those that originate in Mohammed's writings and teachings.

It is clear that for contemporary world society to survive, all us human beings have to be civilized towards each other. No problem. But I just can't turn my back on Islam since I truly believe that their theology allows condemnation and persecution of all who are unwilling to submit themselves to Islam. And I'm not willing to submit to anybody except God.

Blessings!

Albania: Home of a kinder, gentler, and more tolerant Islam? Or home base for Islamic missionaries determined to convert Europeans?

Islam Builds a Future in Kosovo, One Mosque at a Time

Kosovo legally remains part of Yugoslavia. But the region's Muslim leaders are preparing for eventual independence
By Frank Brown  

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Sept. 12 (RNS)--Kosovo's Muslim leaders are tackling the enormous task of repairing nearly half the region's mosques damaged by war-- and educating an Islamic public largely ignorant of its faith.
If the leaders of Kosovo's overwhelmingly dominant faith succeed, they may well create what one religion expert here believes will be Europe's "second Muslim state" after neighboring Albania.
Indeed, Kosovo's Grand Mufti, Rexhep Boja, the Muslims' spiritual head who has carefully avoided politics, is adamant on one political question: whether Kosovo will someday be rejoined with predominantly Orthodox Serbia.
"The people will not accept it. I won't either," said Boja, 54, in an interview in his office at the Islamic Faculty here. "After what happened, we just cannot accept it."
Kosovo remains part of Serb-dominated Yugoslavia under the terms of the United Nations Security Council resolution that ended last year's NATO bombing and allowed for the return of more than 700,000 ethnic Albanian refugees to the province. In practice, U.N. administrators are in charge and ethnic Serbs are steadily fleeing Kosovo.
This autumn the Muslim community will appeal to U.N. administrators to allow the introduction of religious studies in primary schools across the province.
"We've been trying to get Islamic studies in the ordinary government schools, but so far with no success," said professor Qemajl Morina, vice dean of the Islamic Faculty. "They are afraid of religion in schools. They are afraid of what they will say in the West, of public opinion."
Aside from teaching Islam for the 70% of Kosovo's population who are Muslims, Morina believes students should be offered elementary instruction in the region's two main minority faiths, Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholicism.
"By teaching children about each other's religion, we can create more tolerance," said Morina, 51, a voice of moderation within the Muslim community.

A broad-based Muslim revival in Kosovo could help invigorate the region's democratic institutions, which are still reeling from last year's war and 10 years of intense Serb discrimination before that. Andreas Szolgyemy, a Hungarian religion expert working in Pristina, said there is a "tremendous interest among the young" in Islam.
Szolgyemy is an adviser on religious affairs for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is playing a major role in Kosovo's rebuilding. He said the impact of Islam in Kosovo will be determined largely by what sort of Islam is taught in the region's schools.
"If they want to teach the Wahhabi ideas, which is what I'm afraid they want to do, I don't think it will be so good," said Szolgyemy, referring to the fundamentalist, puritanical brand of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia. "The Wahhabis are not so tolerant.... They forbid, for example, mixed marriages(which were common during the Tito years.) They treat women as second-rank citizens. They don't like dancing, the cinema, or television."

Of the 10 Islamic non-governmental organizations working in Kosovo today, the largest is the Saudi Joint Relief Committee. Saudi sponsors delivered 200,000 Albanian-Arabic Qur'ans to the province last October.
Such assistance is welcome by Mufti Boja, who studied Islam for 15 years in Medina, Saudi Arabia.
"We have a lot of work," Boja said, noting that 216 of Kosovo's 513 mosques were damaged in the years of conflict.

Based in mosques, Muslim clerics working throughout Kosovo will hasten the healing process, he said.
"We have imams in every village," said Boja. "They visit families and explain that according to the Qur'an they must forget the past and start again. Forget the past."


At the current rate of growth, Szolgyemy predicted that Kosovo will have an increasingly Muslim character.
"They would like to establish a second Muslim state in Europe. Albania will soon be one. And things are very open in Kosovo. It is nothing for Saudi Arabia to support Kosovo," he said.
Szolgyemy was quick to caution, however, that "maybe the main religion will be Islam but not the state religion. There are a lot of [Kosovar] Albanian Catholics, and I am 100% sure they would protest."

Backed by U.N. administrators, a ministry of religious affairs will likely open this autumn in Kosovo and be headed by a Muslim layman, said Szolgyemy. The ministry would be charged, in part, with monitoring and regulating non-traditional religious missionaries ranging from evangelical Protestants to radical Muslims.
Given Kosovo's total dependence on governments and public opinion in the West--where ignorance and fear often color reactions to Islam--Morina was careful to emphasize that Kosovo's Muslim leaders would remain independent and tolerant.
"We have made clear to all the Islamic organizations that we will accept their help but that we remain in control of the Islamic situation," said Morina, adding that Wahhabis are not especially influential. "Because we live in Europe and have other religious communities, we must be very tolerant toward them."
Like Szolgyemy, Morina said that even if Kosovo has an increasingly Muslim character it will have little impact on the political scene. Referring to U.N.-administered elections set for October, Morina said, "We have 29 political organizations in Kosovo and not one of them has come to visit us."


Historically, Albanians have identified themselves more by their ethnicity than their faith. ( The religion of Albanians is Albania!) However, that has not stopped the identification of religious symbols as ethnic symbols. Since more than 40,000 NATO-led troops entered Kosovo in June 1999, more than 80 Orthodox churches and monasteries have been desecrated. Today, most Orthodox religious sites are protected by soldiers.
"We are ashamed when we see the tanks in front of Orthodox churches because the Albanians have respected Orthodox churches for 500 years, even in places where Serbs don't live anymore," Morina said.
"I asked some people, 'Why are you destroying this Orthodox church?' They said, 'Because they destroyed our mosque.' It is not from religious feeling that they do these things. It is from revenge," Morina continued, as he took out several color photocopies of photos documenting Serb abuses.
The photos showed cases of Serb police torturing young Albanian men by scratching Orthodox crosses onto the victims' chests during the worst persecution of Kosovar Albanians in the late 1990s.


After fleeing his home in April 1999, Morina said he returned in the summer to find it looted with all his Arabic-language books destroyed.
"I had a big picture of grandfather on the wall. He was also an Islamic teacher. In the picture, he is wearing a turban, and they drew a cross over the turban," said Morina, chuckling wryly at the apparent futility of it.


 

[ 11-18-2001: Message edited by: Psalm 46 ]

Dear Friends,

I simply don't know if the parallel with the Mormons applies to Islam.

Mormonism claims to be the "true" understanding of the historical Church of Christ itself, the Trinity (in effect, tritheism) and the Incarnation (Christ produced by the "union" of God the Father with the Virgin Mary etc.) calling itself "Christian" and "Church" etc.

Islam borrowed from other religions to be sure, but is not a "remake" of any of them.

Our view of Islam is currently highly coloured by the recent terrorist events, including the historical experiences with Islamic peoples that our respective ethnic groups have had.

The secular media has always strongly suggested that the way for the Arabic and other traditionally Muslim countries to go is to become "secular" and discard, in accordance with secular ideology, Islam (by way of implication, any religion).

Muhammad's view of Christianity was not influenced by his contacts with Arianism (effectively dead at his time in history) nor Nestorianism, but with Oriental Orthodoxy.

He actually praised the Ethiopian Orthodox Christians very highly and warned his followers to leave Abyssinia alone.

His teaching actually brought his formerly pagan followers closer to Judaism and Christianity, without getting into the points of divergence.

Christians too have had their terrorists who used the Gospel to justify mass slaughter throughout history, and we know who they were.

We are called to live the Gospel, as Dr. John frequently reminds us, "prayer and service."

It is in the embrace of that love that Christ is to be found.

Christ's love is to be reflected by Christians.

If anyone doesn't recognize Christ, it is because he or she has yet to feel His love embodied in His followers.

Or as I see it, anyway . . .

Alex

Alex,
I think the parallel does apply because Islam makes the claim to be the "true" understanding of the historical God of Abraham. It claims that Jesus was one of its Prophets while denying his Divinity. It claims that the Bible foretells the coming of Muhammad.

As for it borrowing from other religions, if this is true (which I think it is) then it is a man made religion and they do not worship the same God as Christianity and should we endeavor for a dialogue with it?


Your brother in Christ,
David

[ 11-19-2001: Message edited by: DavidB ]

Dear David,

Yes and no.

What Islam is about is something that all other religions are about to a certain extent as well.

Islam doesn't say it is a "Christian" denomination and the only true one as does Mormonism vis a vis Christianity.

Islam doesn't worship Christ as does Mormonism, even though it doesn't accept that Christ's Divinity is equal to that of the Father (This makes Mormonism a form of Arianism, in fact.)

We assume that because Muhammad didn't accept Christ as God, that he was influenced by Arianism.

Nothing could be further from the actual case, however.

He had no contact with Arians. If he had somehow adopted their Christology, then he would have worshipped Christ as being, as the Arians held, "more than man, but less than God."

Muhammad totally rejected this, although he did ascribe veneration to Christ and His Mother as prophets.

Right now, so many of us are equating Islam as containing terrorist imperatives that we can't really think objectively about it. We should therefore leave it alone, for now.

Previous fruits of Christian-Muslim dialogue have been positive, with even Muslim philosophers affirming that the best form of union between God and man would be, philosophically, "Incarnation."

I have seen this statement contained in Muslim prayerbooks and religious texts.

We have a role to play in helping Muslims come to realize respect for religious pluralism.

After all, Christians have been intolerant of other religions for centuries, and most of us have snapped out of it eventually.

We therefore have something to bring to any Christian-Muslim discussion table.

Alex

It is an unsettling and nightmarish thought, but is it possible that the many Orthodox and Catholic Balkan Christians who converted to Islam out of conviction, were right?

Dear Psalm 46,

Regrettably, the conversions to Islam as you state were really done for material reasons, rather than spiritual ones.

In Africa, for example, Christians were treated as second-class citizens throughout.

For example, if you were a Christian living in a Muslim society there, you wore a five-pound wooden Cross around your neck. You were obliged to ride your donkey backwards. You wore bells on your clothes to warn the Muslims in the marketplace that a Christian was coming. (The source of the saying, "I'll be there with bells on.") Then there was the discrepancy in tax rates . . .

Were they right? Only insofar as they didn't want to be martyrs or else treated as second-class citizens.

The New Martyrs of Greece and elsewhere witnessed to their Faith.

The rest of us do our best, I suppose.

Alex

A most curious quote:

A broad-based Muslim revival in Kosovo could help invigorate the region's democratic institutions

Can anyone name a democratic Muslim state?

Dan Lauffer

Albania is the only one I can think of. But I have no interest in Islam outside of the Balkans, and especially Albania, so I might be mistaken.


On the other hand, it does seem that at least some of the Islamic Central Asian Republics, though majority Muslim, are trying very hard to be tolerant of minority populations and control Muslim extremists. I believe some of the Russian Autonomous Islamic Republics are also trying to develop in that direction. But do these nations fit the Western definition of democracies? I don't believe so.


Bill

[ 11-19-2001: Message edited by: Psalm 46 ]

Dear Alex,

In all fairness, many Balkan Christians ( Slovens, Albanians-Illyrians, Croats, Serbs, Bosnians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Catholics, Orthodox, Bogomils and others), were ripe for conversion, and not just out of fear or for opportunistic reasons.

Many were alienated from Christianity ( for a variety of reasons) and the message of Islam, for them, was "good news." I believe we must, at least, admire their convictions even if we cannot approve of their decision. And it is only fair to mention that, in the Balkans, Sufi Islamic missionaries sometimes preceded the Ottoman armies and were warmly welcomed by the Christian inhabitants who were impressed with the deep spirituality, holiness, and generosity of the missionaries.

In many ways Balkan Christianity, both Catholic and Orthodox, failed the common, rural people and left a spiritual void in the hearts of many true seekers; a void that was filled by Islam.

Sincerely,

Bill

Dear Bill,

There is no doubt that alienation from mainstream Christianity is what produces candidates for conversion to other religions.

The same is happening in the former Soviet Union right now.

Jewish missionaries in the seventeenth century in Russia made inroads not only among those who were alienated from Orthodoxy, but also among Orthodox bishops and priests!

Higher clergy actually converted to the sect of the Judaizers who broke icons and returned to many Jewish practices.

Their influence reached even as high as the Tsars.

An Orthodox synod condemned this group as heretical and excommunicated all those clergy who belonged to it.

Not only those who are disaffected with Christianity join other faiths. They do so for a myriad of reasons.

But in the Balkans and elsewhere under Islamic rule, to become a Muslim was to enhance one's life chances in those societies.

For many, religion simply does not mean much one way or another. When faced with the prospect of the discrimination and even martyrdom under Islamic rule, they decided to convert.

Even if what you say is true, which I believe it is, there is no real way to discover to what extent it held sway over the minds and hearts of the people of the Balkans given the harsh persecutions of the Islamic regime there.

But I have met former Orthodox seminarians who are now Muslims.

The chief advisor to President Bush on Islam is a Muslim convert from Greek Orthodoxy who was destined for the Orthodox priesthood.

Alienated? If candidates to the priesthood can be alienated from Christianity, then I suppose so.

Alex

Alex,

And can we forget that Cat Stevens (a/k/a Yusuf Islam) is the son of a Greek Catholic father from Alexandria and a mother who is a Jew from Sweden!

Maybe he came to the conclusion that Islam was a good compromise for him?
(Just being sarcastic.)

There is an Islamic teacher in the Orlando area who is a former Franciscan friar of Irish descent and we have Tosks, (or is it
Ghegs?), Albanian Catholics, in our area who seem to have no reservations about allowing their daughters to convert to Islam and marry Albanian Muslims. And what about Arafat's wife, a Catholic convert to Islam? You don't think her conversion might have had something to do with her marriage to hubby Yassir, 'do ya?'

You just never know what truly moves people and why.

Bill

[ 11-20-2001: Message edited by: Psalm 46 ]

Dear Bill,

You are absolutely right.

No sir, I don't know why Nassir's wife converted, although I could venture a guess.

The rather vituperant nature of Islamic states toward other faiths makes even religious sharing a problematic issue.

Many New Martyrs of Orthodoxy were done to death not as a result of having a loud philosophic disagreement with Islam, or for even decrying the Prophet (peace be upon him).

They were killed because they happened to have a dhikr or Muslim prayer beads, or happened to sing a version of the Muslim prayer of the 99 Names of God or some such other matter which meant, before the Islamic courts at least, that they were now Muslim, so why did they continue to go to Church and wear the Cross?

To become a Muslim, one need only recite the creed in one God and prophet, as I understand, so once someone said you were a Muslim, it was next to impossible to prove you weren't.

And if you persisted in saying you weren't, then this was assumed to be blasphemy, worthy of the death penalty, absolved of only if one formally clung to Islam.

This was how the Orthodox St George of Ioannina was martyred and a host of others, as you know.

Also, Muslims tend to join with Christians on Christian holidays in many countries. Many Christian saints are honoured by the Muslims as well and they see no conflict if they attend the services and the pilgrimages.

The Montenegrin Orthodox Saint Vasili Ostrozhky's Shrine is regularly visited by Muslims, for example, and they do experience miraculous healings, as happens at other Christian shrines.

There are places in India where Christians also gather for celebrations of venerated Sufi and other holy people of other religions.

This was so strong in Ethiopia, that this Church adopted a number of Islamic traditions, including the veneration of Nabi Iskander or Alexander the Great, the Prophet.

I like that devotion . . .

Alex(ander)

I'd never heard that Yusuf Islam — whose music as Cat Stevens I like very much, whose sincerity I don't doubt and who has my respect even though technically he is an apostate (his criticisms of the West and of secularism can sound authentically Orthodox) — had a Greek Catholic father and Jewish mother. I'd heard on TV before his most recent rare interview in that medium that he (born Stephen Georgiou in London) left at least nominal Orthodox affiliation for Islam. (Maybe they just assumed that because he is Greek.) Like the Sufis Psalm 46 describes, Mr Islam has a gentle presence.

The Bosnians, Slavs just like the Serbs and Croats (the three really are the same ethnic group with, I believe, the same language), once were Bogomils, neither Catholic nor Orthodox but followers of a medieval, local version of Manichaeanism (dualism, like the Albigensians in early medieval France). They both had no great love for the Christianity of their neighbors and sometime rulers and Islam resonated a lot with the faith they already had. So they enthusiastically converted and are Muslims to this day. That this also gave them favored status among the Ottomans' subject peoples is unquestioned.

The Albanians, not Slavs, were at least nominally Orthodox in the Middle Ages under Constantinople's rule. Was their mass conversion to Islam out of conviction, coercion or opportunism? I don't know.

http://oldworldrus.com

[ 11-20-2001: Message edited by: Serge ]