Erica Good, New York Times, Sep.16, www.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/us/fbi-chided-for-training-that-was-critical-of-islam.html?_r=1
Arab-American and Muslim groups deplored on Friday the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s use of training material that characterized the prophet Muhammad as a “cult leader” and linked Muslims’ religious devotion to a potential for violence.
“It’s really troubling,” said Abed Ayoub, the legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
Eric Yoffie, Washington Post, Sep.10, www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/after-sept-11-four-tasks-for-religion/2011/09/10/gIQA9h4kHK_blog.html
Ten years ago this weekend, a terror attack changed the world and changed America forever. It left Americans frightened and dismayed, and filled American hearts with bewilderment and enduring rage.
We stand here today as representatives of America’s great religious traditions. What has been our role in healing our nation?
I suggest that we have had, and still have, four major tasks.
Our first task is to help America remember the victims and to offer their families comfort and healing. Our second task is to educate about the meaning of 9/11. Our third task is to resist with all of our might the view that the extremist fringe that carried out and supported this violent act is the voice of Islam in America or in the world. And our fourth and final task is to offer hope, and faith.
So I end with the hope – that is our common hope – that Muslims, Jews, and Christians will not permit fanaticism to grow or prejudice to harden; that as the sacred day of 9/11 approaches, we will honor the memory of those who died by teaching our children to honor life; and that here, in America, as seekers of God and children of Abraham, we will refuse to grant a victory to those who work to divide us; that here in America, we will reclaim our common heritage and find a common path.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie is president of the Union for Reform Judaism.
Heather M. Higgins, CNN, Sep.10, religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/10/ground-zero-mosque-moving-forward/
While all eyes are on lower Manhattan, nearly 200 people gathered more than 100 blocks north of Ground Zero on Friday night to honor 9/11 families and to recognize a decade of interfaith work at the Interchurch Center.
“Tonight we want to commemorate the event and we are going to honor 10 families who lost victims on 9/11. Five are Muslim, five are not Muslim, to show that we share the pain, we share the hope, we share the prayer,” said Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.
He hosted the event, In Good Faith: Stories of Hope and Resilience, along with the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA) and the Interchurch Center.
September 11 raised the profile of Islam in the U.S. and, according to Rauf, it caused the Western world to pay attention in a way that made Muslims the subject of intense suspicion. His goal is to build an American Muslim identity and enhance multi-faith dialogue.
The event highlighted bridge-building projects and began with a harmonic recitation from the Quran by Ali Karjoovary.
“We need a national healing around 9/11 and our hope is that we can achieve it,” Rauf said. “And no matter how you slice it, I believe this healing will require the help of religious voices and American Muslims.”
Mary Grace Lucas, CNN, Sep.11, religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/11/multi-faith-911-prayer-vigil-calls-for-tolerance/
Hundreds gathered in Washington Sunday to share an interfaith moment together in remembrance of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The morning vigil service, planned over months by staff at the Washington National Cathedral, integrated chants, prayers, music and traditions from across the religious spectrum.
The event was one of several organized by the Washington National Cathedral over the weekend.
“We feel like our events say to the world that faith is an element [of commemorating 9/11],” said Steven Schwab, spokesman for Washington National Cathedral.
A reading during the service mentioned the biblical Tower of Babel and subsequent scattering of peoples and languages over the earth.
Other readings, prayers, and reflections contemplated love, conflict, grief, and the idea of finding a single truth in differing viewpoints.
“These attitudes and relationships have a crucial bearing on justice. Justice is not about following the law. It’s about how we treat each other,” said local Hindu leader Dr. D.C. Rao.
“Without understanding and respect, there can be no justice.”
Mercy and tolerance were two other key theme as leaders took the podium to share thoughts on living in a community of vastly different religious and non-religious perspectives.
“Faith is mercy. Mercy is love for humanity. A love for humanity is to believe that human life – all human life – is sacred,” said Imam Mohammed Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society.
Razak Ahmad, Reuters, Sep.12, in.reuters.com/article/2011/09/12/idINIndia-59282520110912
A raid on a church by Muslim authorities has raised religious tension in Malaysia and could cost Prime Minister Najib Razak votes in an election set for 2013 but which many expect to come much earlier.
The raid has sparked an angry verbal battle between Christians and the majority Muslims, forcing Najib to seek what may be an elusive peace between the ethnic Malays and minorities, both of which believe the government isn’t doing enough to safeguard their rights.
Conservative Muslims want the government to crack down on what they say is growing boldness by Christians to try to convert Muslims, which is an offence in Malaysia, while ethnic minorities worry their rights are being eroded.
Paul Brandeis Rauschenbush, Huffington Post, Sep. 6, www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-raushenbush/911-religion_b_949688.html
Two religious responses from the days immediately following the attacks of 9/11 demonstrate how religion has been both a divisive and unifying force in America over the last ten years.
The first was from Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell who assigned blame for the attacks to God who, they explained, was angry at America because of Gays, Feminists and the ACLU, among others. While fires still smoldered at Ground Zero, Falwell and company were ironically fanning the flames of discord and division by blaming God and liberals instead of religious extremism.
The second response was different. As soon as reports made clear that the terrorists claimed allegiance to the fundamentalist Islam of Osama bin Laden, many feared violence might be directed toward the American Muslim population. Yet in the days after 9/11, reports came from all across the country that Christians, Jews, and other people of faith had called local mosques to offer support and solidarity. Instead of turning against Muslims, the religious community rallied for their fellow Americans of a different faith tradition.
These two examples show the simultaneous yet divergent directions that religious practice and thought has taken in America in the last ten years. 9/11 made it clear that religion, which had been ignored in global political calculations and overlooked by the media for decades, was still a force, and perhaps the force in people’s personal and communal lives.
David Crampton, ENInews, Sep.6, www.eni.ch/featured/article.php?id=5129
In a test case of religious intolerance in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, an Indonesian mayor is defying court rulings by pushing for a decree to block Christians from opening churches on streets with Islamic names.
Members of the Taman Yasmin Indonesian Christian Church in the West Java town of Bogor are, after three years, still forced to worship on the sidewalk outside their building, protected by police. Although a verdict from Indonesia’s highest court in December, backed by the National Ombudsman Commission, favoured the church, Bogor has defied the order.
Philip A. Cunningham and Eric J. Greenberg — ENInews/RNS, Sep.1, www.eni.ch/featured/article.php?id=5122
A fascinating exchange recently took place in the pages of the Vatican’s newspaper between the chief rabbi of Rome and the Vatican’s chief representative to the Jewish people. Their conversation reflected just how far we’ve come in Christian-Jewish relations — but also how far we have yet to go, Religion News Service reports.
It started when L’Osservatore Romano published an article by Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. Writing about the upcoming interfaith gathering at Assisi, Italy, on 27 October, Koch noted two key changes since the first Assisi summit 25 years ago: the collapse of communism and the rise in terrorism.
After arguing that “peace is the common effort of all religions,” Koch concluded that from a Christian perspective, “the cross of Jesus erases any desire for vengeance and calls everyone to reconciliation, it rises above us as the permanent and universal Yom Kippur,” referring to the Jewish Day of Atonement.
The cross is “not an obstacle to interreligious dialogue,” he wrote, “but rather, it indicates the decisive way that especially Jews and Christians, but also Muslims and followers of other religions, should welcome with a deep inner reconciliation, becoming the leaven of peace and justice in the world.”
Karen Seidman, National Post, Sep.6, www.nationalpost.com/arts/books/Dalai+Lama+joins+Muslim+scholar+forum/5357429/story.html
The Dalai Lama will join controversial Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan in Montreal on Wednesday for a conference on world religions and peace in the aftermath of 9/11.
But rather than promising inspiration in a world plagued by religious tumult, the conference has already stirred up controversy and dissension as critics charge that the Dalai Lama is being duped into promoting Islamic fundamentalism.
The Second Global Conference on World’s Religions After Sept. 11 is being organized by McGill University and the Universite de Montreal; organizer Arvind Sharma, a professor of comparative religion at McGill, says the goal is to debate how religions can contribute to peace in the world.
Vimeo, Sep.7, vimeo.com/28716668
Tensions between Muslims and Christians have skyrocketed in recent months. A Florida pastor is accused of inciting violence after he publicly burned a Quran, and CNN aired a special report on Murfreesboro, Tennessee Muslims who clashed with residents over plans to expand their Islamic Center. In a moment of such tension, misunderstandings between Muslims and Christians run rampant and caricatures abound. How can the world’s two largest religions co-exist and even cooperate in such a contentious time? Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of the Cordoba Initiative and Gabe Lyons discuss the future for faith relations in the West.
