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Introduction
This is
an attempt to address an issue which will continue to address itself
to us as long as we continue to live in the Middle East. This is
also true in many parts of our globe. No one with enough common
sense will either pretend as if it is not there, or belittle the
impact and the potential that lies within it. Islam is recognized as
one of the three monotheistic religions, and Moslems form one fifth
of the population of the world.
Statistics
United
Nations department on statistics estimates that by the year 2025,
the number of Moslems in the world would reach two billion, 600
million of whom would be Arabs, with 60 per cent below the age of
25. In the year 2050, the number will reach four billion of whom one
billion would be Arabs. The same source shows that by the year 2040
the number of Arabs in the Holy Land will become equal to that of
the Jews, and will exceed it in less than a generation.
Arab
Christians
We Arab
Christians trace our origin to the first Penticost. We were the
tail-end of the list of 17 nationalities present then (Acts 2:11).
Our
roots go deep into the soil of a region where, despite all
difficulties, and the fact that we have been buried beneath a
superimposed western veneer-- the legacy of nearly 150 years when
the faith was closely aligned with European imperial power, we have
survived for 2,000 years: nothing less than an awesome achievement.
Today
we make up 16 million out of the 250 million Arabs. Some 150,000
remain in the birth place of our faith, Israel and Palestine, hardly
1.5 per cent of the population. Our mere physical presence is at
stake. This too demands our attention, lest the Holy Land become a
museum of holy stones.
Our
history is complex, mingling alienation and hope. Not only were we
among the 3,000 converts of that first Penticost, our numbers
swelled when the Apostle Thomas reached Arabia on his way to India.
In our
first five centuries, the Church expanded throughout the Middle East
and North Africa. The Gospel profoundly influenced all the peoples
of the region, including the founder of Islam, Mohammed himself.
From among our own were martyrs and saints. The Patron Saint of
England, St. George, is but one: a Palestinian from Lydda.
The
historical events of the seventh century: schisms, monopoly of
Byzantium over the Church in the Middle East, the superstitions that
replaced true faith, heresies and the like caused many to leave the
Church and join Islam. Christians in the West and the East would not
preach the Gospel of reconciliation to those who drifted away. They
counted as worthy of the fire of hell rather than the salvation of a
loving forgiving God. The majority became the minority. The whole
region was lost to Islam.
Then
followed the Crusades, the missionary enterprise, the fall of
Constantinople to the Moslems in 1453, the arrival of European
colonial powers and last but not least, the coming of the State of
Israel (which many evangelical Christians view as a “fulfillment of
O.T. prophecies”, thus causing us Middle East Christians a real
embarrassment, and placing us on the side of collaborators against
the majority of our own people). Such and other, local and
international, factors shaped the kind of relations we have with
Islam today.
For
1,300 years we have been co-living and having daily living dialogue
with Moslems. We had our problems and difficulties. In some
countries we were discriminated against, denied equal rights,
attacked, persecuted and rejected, not allowed to build or renovate
Churches, viewed as not 100 per cent Arab, and as collaborators with
the Christian West. Foreign rule in the Middle east, especially
Ottoman, caused us real pain. (Local Moslems did not have it any
better). In other areas such practices, as mentioned above, were not
welcomed at all. Despite (this), we became accustomed to live with
them, and they learned to appreciate our presence among them. An
indigenous Arab Christian Church has survived. Moslems recognize the
great contribution we have made to the awakening of the Arab nation.
Islam
Whatever the views of Christians, more specifically western
Christians, are on Islam, no one can deny that it was an essential
aspect in the history of humankind. Many Orientalists viewed it with
suspicion and caused many to fear and misunderstand it. No wonder
many of us relate to it today as a problem rather than as a
challenge. Moslems are human beings, created by the same God who
created all of us, not by a semi-god. They are part of the world
that God so loved and desires to save through His only son Jesus
Christ.
There
are some in the world who cannot live without enemies. If they
cannot find them, they create them. With the collapse of communism
many wish us to view Islam as the enemy number one.
Generally speaking, people are scared and suspicious of what they
are ignorant of. True Islam is not known to many in the West. Hence
the suspicion, the bias and prejudice against it and against its
adherents.
It may
be useful to point at this juncture that Moslem power structures
that were indigenous to our region, rooted in its customs and mores,
were generally more tolerant of religious pluralism than their
European counterparts. Until the time of the Ottoman Turks, the
ascendancy of Arab Islam heralded periods of greater peace and
tolerance than what ensued under western Christian or Jewish rule.
Having
said this, one needs to point out that Islamic fundamentalism and
fanaticism caused more harm to Islam and to the Moslems than it did
to others.
Personal Experience
I am
but one of over a thousand Arab Palestinian Christian Anglican
Israelis. I dare say that I speak for the greater majority of them,
if not for the majority of all Arab Christians in Israel. Our
experience with Islam has been one of mutual respect, and mutual
trust.
At
Christ Church School in Nazareth, we have over 600 students, 65 per
cent are Moslems. We keep our good Anglican tradition of having
Chapel services every morning. All attend. All take Christian
Education classes and do better than our own in their exams. Once or
twice in 30 years I encountered problems. The real problem that I
had over the years came round Christmas. Most parents think their
children qualify to be shepherds, kings, Mary, etc. It is very
difficult to place 600 students on a small stage inside our Church.
We share our faith. We do not impose it. We share it in the spirit
of Truth and Love.
Another
example: I ran twice for parliament in Israel (the Knesset) The
Party, the Progressive List for Peace assigned me the Triangle area,
totally Moslem. Moslems of other parties tried to discourage, what
they thought, their own from voting to this “not only Christian, but
also a priest”! The response of the masses was heart lifting: “They
did extremely well. Palestinian history testifies to the good
relations that prevailed over the years.”
Conclusion
To
conclude, before we judge others, we need to examine where we have
failed locally and internationally. How much of the negative recent
developments are the result of the double standard policies some
governments in the West played in the Arab Israeli conflict. And how
much economic interests were part of the dirty game of nations.
Finally I need to
remark that the intellectual and doctrinal difference between Islam
and Christianity show mere diversity of thinking, which bears in it
the enrichment of the human civilization that brings them together.
The aim of history is not that a certain nation should impose itself
on other nations, but it is to seek harmony and co-living. Respect
for the human experience, viewing the other compassionately,
knowledge gained through moral and intellectual honesty. And if in
the process we can dispose finally of the residual hatred, the
offensive generality of labels and stereotypes, as well as the myths
of the past, then so much the better.
A Palestinian
Christian Israeli, Riah Abu El-Assal is a refugee, politician,
deacon, priest, archdeacon, canon, ecumenist, and inter-faith
activist. He is presently Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of
Jerusalem and the Middle East. In 1994, he was invited by Norway and
PNA Chairman Yasser Arafat to attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony
in Oslo. Bishop El-Assal was honored last year with the Jerusalem
Decoration, the highest in Palestine. He is author of Bridges for
Peace, launched in September 1998.
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