Four out of five isn’t bad
Christian-Muslim trip to Kuwait, February/March 2014, part one
Can you do inter faith without praying? No, I don’t think so. Can we Pray Together?
I’m not the greatest of prayers, but am consistently inspired by the devotion of Muslim colleagues and their reliance on prayer, seeking the support and guidance of the Almighty. As my colleague Toufik Kacimi and I prepared to leave the UK for our trip to Kuwait to promote the Forum’s vital, and often unique, work we stopped at Heathrow’s multifaith prayer room. We commented to ourselves that with a small Muslim population in the UK the prayer room is mainly used by Muslims (so if you are a Christian, or any other religion, do use it if you are flying). I decided that I would join Toufik and pray my own evening prayers, but changed my mind when I saw that the small room was full. I prayed outside and resolved then to pray for Toufik whenever we prayed together. It was a natural, but additionally spiritual, part of our Christian-Muslim venture together. I would not normally share this personal action, but for me it expressed commitment to each other which we would be spending much time sharing with others.
Our first scene when we arrived at Kuwait airport was a Christian one. An Orthodox Bishop cleared Customs just ahead of us. As we left the terminal building he was surrounded by Indian Christians who were taking photos of him. It was a great sign of the presence of ‘the other’, how mixed all of our societies are and an encouragement to us.
Arriving in Kuwait City there are many mosques (masjids), especially in the centre of the city, so you can be sure that wherever you are there is one nearby, which is true in some UK cities, though some object to and campaign against the building of houses of prayer. If it was not for houses of prayer and the active and visible presence of people of prayer we would not be doing this work. With more masjids comes more awareness of the times and places of prayer. Before our first meeting and meal in Kuwait we visited a masjid for midday (Zuhr) prayers, I prayed at the back as usual. We spoke to the imam afterwards, introducing ourselves and the Forum, before we left he recited more verses from the Qur’an for us.
Our first meeting was with Dr Mohammed Awadi, a scholar, writer, intellectual and TV personality. He is a very engaging man, even though I talked to him via two-way English and Arabic translation. I was so grateful to Toufik for translating so diligently, including demanding English and Arabic words, missing out on his own lunch as we talked so much. The issue of the day was the impact of the famous Professor Richard Dawkins and his promotion of atheism which prompted a range of questions, on which Dr Mohammed and I had contrasting opinions which made for a lively conversation, hence what is a key value for me, it’s good to disagree! As long as we do it kindly.
These are some of the questions:
· Is atheism a threat to religion?
- Or, is it a response to religion for which people of faith must take some responsibility?
- Is ‘aggressive atheism’ partly due to excessive religious claims and behaviours?
- As people of faith should we put our energy into challenging and debating atheism or opening up dialogue and bridging the gap between believers and atheists?
- Are religion and atheism competing with each other because they both see themselves as rational and logical?
- Or is each, and in this case secular science, trying to achieve something different in a different sphere of human exploration?
Come and help us explore these questions, if not answer them, at our event on 12 March 2014, it’s a shame that Dr Mohammed will not be with us. For myself I cannot do better than recommend Francis Spufford’s book ‘Unapologetic’ which I recommended to my dialogue partner. He was keen to continue the conversation and invited us to his house in a different part of the city. By coincidence, or perhaps not, there is a masjid opposite his house and we visited it for Asr and Maghrib prayers. This is stretching the point of a statement usually made about those who live near the Kaabah, but he is God’s neighbour.
Our dialogue, and our prayers, continued as we met with members of the Cross-Cultural Exchange programme. Like us they are concerned with dialogue and relationships between faiths. The most productive time of the evening was exploring the guidance that they had produced for imams and Muslims in the West explaining Western society, the West’s perception of Islam and how Muslims in the West should relate to new neighbours and new society. And of course, there was a masjid across the street which we visited for the last of the four daily prayers (Isha) which I managed to attend, having missed only the dawn prayers.
Julian Bond
Originally published at christianmuslimforum.org.
