How often do we hear today that religion is the greatest source of conflict and violence in the world? It is understandable that people feel that way, but is it true?

In his study, Body Count, Naveed Sheik, a scholar at the University of Louisville, has compiled lists of major political violence across world history. There he finds that the largest number of deaths were lost in conflicts to protect and expand the interests and borders of nation-states, emerging nations, and colonial or imperial powers in Europe in World War I and World War II, in the Japanese occupation of China, in imperial and communist China and Russia to destroy internal political opposition, by the Mongols in their imperial expansion, and even in American colonialism and expansion whereby millions of natives were killed. In all of these cases, except in the destruction of American indigenous communities, religious differences were a minor or irrelevant factor. Even in the case of Native Americans, religious prejudice could hardly be distinguished from racial prejudice.

This does not mean, however, that religious people can rest easily. Our faiths have been and are used to justify violence and intolerance. Among many examples we can give, I am plagued by the knowledge that thousands of innocent people died in this country in the terrorists attacks of September 11 by men who justify their actions in the name of my religion.

In those cases where religious identity is conflated with ethnic, tribal or national identity, conflicts between different groups seem more injuring. We think of the tragic clashes between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, the genocidal campaign of Serbian Christians against Bosnian Muslims, and the injuring conflict between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims and Christians. Yet in these and in other conflicts, peacemakers motivated by religious faith have contributed to reconciliation and alleviated the suffering of many people. The Grand Mufti of Bosnia, himself a victim of the four year siege of Sarajevo and a man who had to conduct hundreds of funeral prayers for innocent Muslims massacred at Srebrenica in the name of Serbian Christianity, led his people towards reconciliation.

The orphans of Srebrenica were taught to pray: “O God, teach us that tolerance is the highest degree of power and the desire for revenge, the first sign of weakness. O God, if we sin against people, give us the strength of apology. And if the people sin against us, give us the strength of forgiveness.”

Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, the Dali Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, each one is an individual of faith who has drawn upon the discourse of peace, justice and human dignity in their respective traditions to create powerful, positive movements.

As a Muslim, I know that the religion of Islam is mostly a positive force for peace among my community. The majority of the world’s Muslims live in poverty, the result in many cases of the legacy of European colonialism and subsequent dictatorship. Yet ordinary Muslims across the world draw upon their faith to continue to live ethical lives, to show gratitude towards God in the most dire of circumstances and to show charity and hospitality towards others even if their own means are limited. Americans who travel to the Middle East and other regions where there are majority Muslim cultures have experienced this hospitality and kindness.

Since September 11, however, the steady news of suicide bombings and terrorist attacks committed by militant Muslims has resulted in another impression, that Islam promotes violence and that Muslims are in some kind of essential conflict with the West or even with Christianity. It is the nature of the news to focus on the most dramatic, bizarre and disturbing events of the day. Yet when most Americans do not know Muslims personally or have little knowledge about Islam, the result of these persistent violent images leaves a distorted impression.

Certainly it has been appropriate for Muslims to take more responsibility for our faith, to ensure that it is not hijacked to harm others. It is not appropriate, however, for ordinary Muslims to have their own faith defined by the extremists. This is why in 2006, when Pope Benedict XVI delivered a speech in Regensburg, Germany in which it seemed that he suggested that an innate violent tendency and anti-rationality was in Islam, Muslims were deeply hurt. Not only was it upsetting to have such a great spiritual leader misunderstand our religion, but many Muslim leaders were concerned that this speech would contribute to further discriminatory and intolerant actions towards Muslims in Europe, with the result that Muslims would feel further alienated from civic life, a feeling that could contribute to mistrust and even hatred.

In what I can only perceive as a divinely inspired act of reconciliation, a group of prominent Muslim scholars gathered to write an open letter to the Pope and to Christians of the world, to break this cycle of provocation, alienation and division. In October 2007, 138 of the most prominent scholars and leaders from across the world, Muslims from Nigeria to Indonesia, issued an open letter entitled, “A Common Word.” And it begins with this statement:

“Muslims and Christians together make up well over half of the world’s population. Without peace and justice between these two religious communities, there can be no meaningful peace in the world. The future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians. The basis for this peace and understanding already exists. It is part of the very foundational principals of both faiths: love of the one God and love of neighbor. These principals are found over and over again in the sacred texts of Islam and Christianity. The unity of God and necessity of love for him, the necessity of love of neighbor is thus a common ground between Islam and Christianity.”

The response to the Common Word has been extraordinary. Hundreds of Christian religious leaders, including American denominations, responded positively and sensitively with their own letters. Over time more and more Muslim and Christian leaders joined in, and Jewish leaders were also invited to comment and participate in the discussions. Major conferences exploring the implications of the two commands of love God and neighbor were held across the world. But most importantly perhaps from my perspective has been the response of ordinary believers who seem relieved to have an authoritative document permitting them to continue what they already wanted to do: to contribute to the common good with people of other faiths.

It is religious ideology that forms a barrier to this intuitive and compassionate impulse for cooperation on the part of ordinary believers. It is thus the responsibility of religious leaders to remove such ideological barriers. There are those who are afraid of interfaith work but we have to accept that there is a Divine command that there be multiple religions in the world. The Koran says. “We have assigned a law and a path to each of you. If God had so willed, he would have made you one community, but he wanted to test you through that which he had given you. So compete in good works. You will all return to God and he will make clear to you the matters about which you differed.”

There is so much work to be done in the world today as religious people. As professor Timothy
Winter of Cambridge University said, “We are called to prove to the world that we are a force for good.” The modern crisis of faith is all too often triggered by a sense that religion yields the bitter fruit of enmity and conflict. Our most urgent task then, as we seek to recover our place as defenders of human dignity and mutual respect, is to show and practice, and not only in words, that we can cooperate together for the common good. When we cooperate together in good works, everyone will benefit.

Conversation with Ingrid Mattson

Daniel Pawlus: Ingrid, thank you for joining us today. It’s a delight to have you here and have an opportunity to deepen our understanding about the religion of Islam. I thought we might start by talking about your personal journey a little bit. We mentioned in the introduction that you chose to convert and I’m wondering what inspired that and what is the essence and the beauty of this Muslim faith for you.

Ingrid Mattson: For me it really was this example of faith in the world. The first Muslims I met, poor West African students living in Paris, not very well accepted by the people of that city as part of the common good, they still maintained a sense of dignity, a sense of generosity. They didn’t become angry. But they lived their faith through this compassionate sense of generosity which they shared with me, another poor student hanging around the city. So it was that that appealed to me; that attracted me to see what was the spiritual basis of their presence in the world.

Lydia Talbot: I’d be interested, Ingrid, to know, it seems that your life changing friendships with those Muslim students in France and also your work in Pakistan to help Afghan refugees, where you met your future husband, it seems to me you were doing ministry. You were doing discipleship about the reduction of human suffering. So what were those attitudes and values in Islam? Did you see a merging of your understanding of the Christian faith and Islam in your conversion?

Mattson: Absolutely. I was raised a Roman Catholic and when I stopped practicing Catholicism it wasn’t a rejection of the Catholic church, but at that time my faith had simply left and it was Islam that gave me back faith in God. But one thing that I always appreciated in my Catholic upbringing was the sense that we were called to alleviate suffering in the world, to show our gratitude to God for what we had, the blessings we had, by demonstrating that, by sharing them with others. And when I became a Muslim I found that message so strong in the Koran: caring for the poor, showing gratitude to God, not just through your words by saying thanks but through your deeds by helping the people of the world and making this a better place especially for those who are the most marginalized. You know, it’s such a resonance between these two traditions. I think that’s one of the reasons why I find work between Christians and Muslims so easy because it’s clear to me that this is just a foundational message in both our traditions.

Pawlus: What do you find are some of the greater challenges of the misperceptions that people have right now in Christian-Muslim relations? You talked about it a little bit in your message, but there seems to be a lot of misunderstandings out there that you alluded to.

Mattson: Certainly many people believe that Muslims are more violent than other people and that even Islam encourages this violence. This is a problem that is related to the way we understand scripture. It’s one of the reasons I wrote a book on the Koran called, “The Story of the Koran,” to show how the context of the revelations of the Koran needs to be understood so that we can separate those passages that deal with war and conflict and what are the messages for us today. And given the fact that Muslims are now considered to be a quarter of humanity and that most of them are living very peacefully, in many cases as minorities, in countries like India and Russia and China, that most Muslims certainly are not violent people.

Talbot: In trying to break through these stereotypes, distortions of truth, often fueled by secular media, Ingrid, I wonder if you can help us try to see more clearly the fringe elements. I mean, there is internecine warfare not only between religions but among religionists who claim the same faith. So help us understand some of the fringe pieces of Islam in trying to bring clarity to the stereotypical feelings.

Mattson: And that’s a great point, Lydia, because, in fact, if we look at the kind of violence that has occurred in the last, say, seven or eight years, we see that more Muslims have died as a result of terrorism by Muslim extremists than non-Muslims. So this is primarily directed at their own societies. And what are these people opposing? Certainly there are many different messages, some of them more political, economic. But what we see consistently is an authoritarian attitude, a belief that there is one way, one way or the highway. And that really goes against the construction of authority in traditional Islam. We do not have one authority who can decide what is right or wrong in our religion. Islam has a tradition of dialogue, bringing together Muslims from across different places to form a consensus or try to approach consensus on issues. So this authoritarian perspective, which can almost be totalitarian, seems in fact more inspired by those kinds of 20th century fascist or totalitarian movements than anything from the Islamic tradition. I think that is something we need to take seriously is the way that ideologies of the 20th century have really distorted our tradition.

Pawlus: It’s a good segue to talk about A Common Word then that you mentioned in your message as well. This is a document that exists that’s constantly evolving. Some people would ask, what can a document itself do?  But talk about the practical applications of this in the time that we have left here because it’s making an impact in the world in a big way, you would say.

Mattson: Absolutely. And in the end we are a people of scripture and we are a people who have looked to authoritative statements and creeds to show us the bounds or the limits of proper behavior within our traditions, both Christianity and Islam. So it’s important when, as I mentioned, bad ideology comes in the door that there is something that can refute that. And what we’ve noticed is that there is such a sense of relief on the part of ordinary Christians and Muslims that they now have a document like the Common Word and the Christian responses to them to say, yes, you should engage with your neighbor of the other faith in doing good work. You are not required to dislike them or keep them at an arm’s distance. You will not water down your faith if you work with them for the common good to alleviate human suffering. So although people may say it’s just words, we need those words as authoritative so that then we can go out and do those good works with the response to the extremists or fundamentalists in our religion who say stay away from those other people.

Pawlus: We’re so happy you’ve joined us today and it’s been a wonderful conversation. We’re going to continue it on the show, I know, in future programs. Thank you again.

Mattson: Thank you so much. It’s been my pleasure.