Christians challenged to understand Islam on its own terms

ALTHOUGH there is a growing Muslim community in Ireland, they are often I considered as outsiders, and there have been few substantial efforts by Irish scholars to understand either the Muslim community Islam on their own terms.

Those few efforts underline the need for the churches and theology here to reach a greater under poses of Islam and the challenge it growing Muslim community in Ireland some say there are now more Muslims than there are Methodists.

The first Muslim to visit Ireland may have arrived in 845, when al-Ghazal was sent from Cordova by Abd al-Rahman II on a diplomatic mission to the Vikings.

Baptismal records for Enniscorthy show there may have been Muslims in Co Wexford in the middle of the last century. Yet there is a real danger of painting Muslims out of the collage that makes up the Irish identity. Three factors emphasise the need for greater efforts on the part of Muslims and Christians to understand each other.

Firstly, Muslims in Europe are being spoken of in terms that have echoes of the way Jews were spoken of in central Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. They are not seen as being quite European. What does this say to the children and grandchildren of Turks who have settled in Germany but who are still denied full citizenship, or of Algerians and Moroccans who have settled in France? What does it say about Bosnians, Albanians and Turks, and their place in Europe?

These attitudes are reinforced by a widespread and popular misconception that all Muslims are Islamic Fundamentalists. Not all religious Muslims in Algeria are fundamentalists or militants per se.

For example, Dr Mohammed Arkoun a Muslim of Algerian origin who is Professor of the History of Islamic Thought at the Sorbonne in Paris, has been involved in several European initiatives to rethink and reshape the relationship between Europe, Islam and the Mediterranean world.

His recent essay, "Spirituality and Architecture", speaks to all of us who are interested in the meeting point between the sacred and the secular.

Finally, Islam is perceived as a threat to the survival of indigenous Christianity in the Middle East, Sudan, Pakistan, and other regions, and as a competing missionary force in Africa. It is estimated that by the end of the century, Africa will be divided equally by the claims of Islam and Christianity.

Yet dialogue and mission need to go hand in hand with respect for each other's differences.

There is a real danger that we will be unable to maintain this creative tension between mission and dialogue because we do not see Muslims as part of the mix of Irish and European identity, and have little ability to understand Islam on its own terms.

These problems are reinforced by the limited range of courses in Islam offered in this country. The courses offered at the Irish School of Ecumenics and the Milltown Institute by the distinguished Dominican, Father Redmond FitzMaurice, are part of wider courses in inter faith dialogue for degrees in theology and ecumenics.

A course every second year at the Kimmage Mission Institute is one of the options in the degree in theology and anthropology.

But none of these courses is designed to train specialists, or to equip students with the theological and pastoral skill, for dealing with the increasing important encounter between Islam and Christianity.

Although over the past 25 years at the Irish School of Ecumenics seven postgraduate theses have been written on Islam and Islamic Christian studies, only one has been completed by an Irish theologian still resident in Ireland.

This situation in Ireland contrasts sharply with the courses offered in Britain. The most outstanding are those at masters and doctoral level in Birmingham at the Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian Musslim Relations, run by Dr Jorgen Nielsen.

It is doubtful that a centre of such excellence could ever be established in Ireland. But without proper courses, without an adequate academic programme, who will train our RE teachers? Who will train our missionaries, social scientists, theologians, diplomats and journalists? And who will ensure that there is adequate training so that our churches respond with informed and sensitive pastoral care when confronted with the difficulties posed by an almost inevitable growth in the number of Christian Muslim marriages and the consequent conversions?

At this stage, the response to these problems needs to come at three levels.

Firstly, there is a real need for an encounter group for Christian theologians and interested Muslims.

In France, the Muslim Christian Research Group (GRIC) has drawn together Christian and Muslim specialists from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa has kept open the channels for dialogue with the Islamic leadership in Algeria and has prepared the way for the meeting between theologians from the World Council of Churches and the Islamic world in Iran next October.

Any study group in Ireland would need to work on a smaller scale. But, secondly, it would also need to have an input into providing adequate courses at undergraduate level and postgraduate level.

Thirdly, there is a need for a Christian Muslim forum recognised at an official level by the churches, similar to the recognition given to the Irish Council of Christians and Jews. Perhaps, even, there is a need for a similar Council for Christians and Muslims, or even a community of the Abrahamic Faiths Jews, Christians and Muslims similar to the Children of Abraham Foundation in Sweden.

Last year, the Swedish Foreign Ministry organised a seminar to draw together journalists, theologians, diplomats, politicians and academics who are interested in these issues. There is a need for something similar here too. But any debate in Ireland must involve a commitment to openness and honesty, and a willingness to continue the debate so that the next generation of theologians and social scientists understands the next generation of indigenous Irish Muslims.