Category Archives: Islam and Christianity
An African Plea for Tolerance and Unity
“May our love not be centered upon ourselves! May this love not incite us to love only those who are like us or to espouse ideas that are simililar to our own! To only love that which resembles us is to love oneself; this is not how to love.”
These are the words of the Malian mystic Tierno Bokar Saalif Taal, a disciple of the Sufi tradition of Islam. The unity of all believers, like the unity of humankind, was basic in his teaching.
“To believe that one’s race or one’s religion is the only possessor of the truth is an error. This could not be. Indeed, in its nature, faith is like air. Like air, it is indispensable for human life and one could not find one man who does not believe truly and sincerely in something. Human nature is such that it is incapable of not believing in something, whether that is God or Satan, power or wealth, or good or bad luck.”
Tierno (pronounced ‘Chair-no’) Bokar grew up in a devout Muslim household surrounded by social conflict in Segou, a major town of southern Mali. While periodic battles threatened the population, his mother, aunt and grandmother taught and lived the virtues of love and charity. Following his father’s flight with one of the contending militias, Tierno and family settled at 18 in the village of Bandiagara where he lived the rest of his life. As a man who exemplified modesty and humility, he taught that God bestowed faith and wisdom on all peoples regardless of their level of technological advance or education.
His leading disciple Amadou Hampate Ba wrote that Tierno said, “Contrary to what usually happens, one should therefore not be surprised to find spiritual riches in someone from a people considered as backward, but one should instead be troubled at not finding them in civilized individuals who have long worked on developing their material lives.” Ba urged us to remember that all of Tierno’s words “came out of a modest room of dried earth, in the heart of black Africa, in 1933”. Amadou Ba’s 1957 record, published in French, of his master’s teaching was titled A Spirit of Tolerance: The Inspiring Life of Tierno Bokar in the 2008 English translation.
Mali was a French colony and after the Catholic Director of the Office of Muslim Affairs read Amadou Ba’s rough transcript of Tierno’s words, he wrote,
“These were words in their pure state, words spoken not to exalt man, neither speakers nor listener, but rather truly animating words, spoken with such sincere feeling for the other as to cause god to lie in the heart of the unbeliever, to vivify his faith, and to give a meaning to the lives of everyone.”
At the age of 33 Tierno Bokar opened his school, or “zawiya”, in Bandiagara. It was where Amadou Ba began his education. After years of study in the French schools of “French Soudan”, Ba spent six months in 1933 with Tierno, his first and foremost teacher. He took copious notes recording for himself and others what this master of wisdom and faith taught.
Apart from his teachings of tolerance and the unity of humankind, Tierno Bokar appealed to his pupils to find what God was trying to communicate to us through our senses and the “Book of Life”. As Jesus sought to do with the parables, Tierno often based his lessons on seeking the meaning of commonly shared experience. Amadou Ba’s book tells a moving story of his teacher repairing a bird nest and follows it with Tierno recounting an incident when his dog served him as an example of faithfulness. Ba comments, “For him, all of nature, animals and plants included, should be respected because they are not only our nourishing Mother, but they are, moreover, the great divine Book wherein everything is a living symbol and a source of teaching.”
During the six month sabbatical from his post in the French colonial administration Ba asked Tierno whether it was good to study other religions. The “sage of Bandiagara” replied,
“You will gain enormously by knowing about the various forms of religion. Believe me, each one of these forms, however strange it may seem to you, contains that which can strengthen your own faith. Certainly faith, like fire, must be maintained by means of an appropriate fuel in order for it to blaze up. Otherwise , it will dim and decrease in intensity and volume and turn into embers then from embers to coals and from coals to ashes.”
Tierno Bokar then added, “That which varies in the diverse forms of Religion – for there can only be one Religion- are the individual contributions of human beings interpreting the letter with the laudable aim of placing religion within the reach of the men of their time. As for the sources of religion itself,” he went on to say, “it is a pure and purifying spark that never varies in time or space, a spark which God breathes into the spirit of man at the same time as He bestows speech upon him.”
With his emphasis on love and humility, Tierno’s teachings on religious tolerance came naturally. A plea for the unity of all believers accompanied his teaching on tolerance:
“Brothers of all religions, let us in God lower the boundaries that separate us. Down with the artificial creations that pit human being against each other….. Let us fly as an eagle with powerful wings towards the union of hearts towards a religion that is not inclined towards the exclusion of other ‘credos’ but towards the universal union of believers, freed from their own selves and morally liberated from the appetites of this world.”
Tierno advocated respect and acceptance for Christian missionaries and colonial officials: “This religion, which Jesus sought to deliver and which was loved by Muhammad, is that which, like pure air, is in permanent contact with the sun of Truth and Justice, as well as with the Love of the Good and Charity for all.”
It is with excitement that I introduce most of you readers to the teaching of Tierno Bokar. I am looking forward to re reading Ba’s book again and expect it will soon fill with my scrawled notes and comments. The lessons of a heightened awareness of what is going on around us in nature, the animal and plant realms in particular, hold a special appeal for me as I approach three quarters of a century in age. I also plan to order the only other book I know of that treats Tierno’s insights on God’s presence. Published in 1984 it is by the author of the introduction to Ba’s book, Dr. Louis Brenner, and is titled West African Sufi: The Religious Heritage and Spiritual Search of Cerno Bokar Saalife Tall .
Pope and the Grand Imam Pledge to Work For “Human Fraternity”
Pope Francis became the first Pope to visit the Arabian Peninsula in February 2019. The Abu Dhabi Papal mass was attended by 135,000 of the estimated one million plus Catholics living in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) as migrant workers. (Photo by The National.ae)
In a dramatic initiative to ease Muslim-Christian tensions and violent conflict, the Pope and the Grand Imam, the highest authority in Sunni Islam, pledged last February to “work strenuously to spread the culture of tolerance and of living together in peace”. Although largely ignored by secular media, notably in the U.S., the leaders of the world’s two largest religious bodies jointly created a document stating that “faith leads a believer to see in the other a brother or sister to be supported and loved”.
Intended as a model and a guide for peacemaking and dialog in our times, the “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together” was signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam Sheikh Abu Tayeb in Abu Dhabi. It was the first visit ever of a Pope to the Arabian peninsula, the cradle of Islam. While Christians have led the refugee flight from Iraq, Syria and the Palestinian territories, the Pope has worked to enhance understanding and respect for Christians now living in predominantly Muslim countries. Improving relationships with Muslim leaders is a priority of Pope Francis’ papacy and can also be seen as repairing the damage done by his predecessor Pope Benedict. A 2006 speech by the former Pope was widely interpreted as characterizing Islam as a religion which condones violence.
The “Human Fraternity” document signed in February and the current Pope’s warm relationship and ongoing dialog with the Grand Imam and other Muslim leaders encourage “all who believe that God has created us to understand one another, cooperate with one another and live as brothers and sisters who love one another.” The document identifies several obstacles to creation of a culture of dialog and peace in today’s world.
The Abu Dhabi signing of the “Human Fraternity” document followed the Grand Imam’s Vatican audience with the Pope in May, 2016. (Vatican photo)
Echoing Martin Luther King’s observation that our technological advance has surpassed our knowledge of how to live in peace, the document identifies the causes of conflict today as “a desensitized human conscience, a distancing from religious values and a prevailing individualism accompanied by materialistic philosophies that deify the human person and introduce worldly and material values in place of supreme and transcendental principles.” Strongly condemned are religious groups who, “have taken advantage of the power of religious sentiment in the hearts of men and women in order to make them act in a way that has nothing to do with the truth of religion. This is done for the purpose of achieving objectives that are political, economic, worldly and short-sighted.” Such “False Religion” has supported military build up leading to “signs of a ‘third world war being fought piecemeal’”.
Also contributing to the crises today the document points to increasing economic inequality, and the exploitation of women and denial of their rights. In its conclusion the document urges “research and reflection” on its contents in all places of learning “to educate new generations to bring goodness and peace to others, and to be defenders everywhere of the rights of the oppressed and of the least of our brothers and sisters”.
Unfortunately, most American media emphasized the political implications of the February meeting of the two leaders while ignoring the document’s contents. The two New York Times articles reporting on the Pope’s visit to the Arabian peninsula failed to mention the document or its contents. By contrast, the official Vatican News headline the day after the meeting celebrated “the historic declaration of peace, freedom, women’s rights”. Conservative Catholic media and commentators rued the document language characterizing the diversity of religions as “willed by God in His wisdom”. One commentator speculated that “this is not what Muslim converts (to Christianity, ed.) want to hear from their Pope”.
The lack of attention paid the document is troubling. Our secular media’s tepid response suggests we live in a world captivated by the force of armaments. Ignorance of this significant effort to bring about a world of “human fraternity” reminds of Stalin’s reputed response to the suggestion that the Pope be invited to the Tehran Conference in 1943. “And how many divisions does the Pope have?” the Russian leader was reported to have asked.
Despite the neglect of the “Human Fraternity” document, and the opposition of Catholic critics of the Pope’s embrace of “religious pluralism”, Francis and the Vatican are following through on the dialog with Muslim leaders. Meetings in August resulted in some edits of the February document and were followed by another conversation between the Grand Imam and the Pope this month in Rome. Discussion focused on the progress of the joint “Superior Committee” in efforts to achieve the objectives agreed on in February.
To read the complete document signed in February 2019 go to:
Creating a Culture of Tolerance
After 300 plus years of Arab Muslim rule in the city, the Alhambra in Granada, was turned over to Christian invaders from the north in 1492. One of the most visited sites in Europe today, it was the last of the Andalucia fiefdoms to fall under Christian rule.
My wife and I just returned from 18 days in Andalucia, southern Spain where Islam was the dominant religion from the mid eighth century to the middle of the 15th century. We were struck by the many traces of the Muslim legacy in the architecture, language, and diet of Andalucia today. Before our trip, it was our good fortune to have read the 2002 book The Ornament of the World in which Rosa Maria Menocal describes the debt which Spain, indeed Western civilization as a whole, owes to the medieval Muslim scholars, artists and several enlightened rulers who settled in Andalucia.
The book’s subtitle “How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain” highlights what Menocal considers one of the
View of Morocco from the southernmost point in Spain, Tarifa where Arab Muslim troops crossed over in 711 AD.
The latter fact is an eerie reminder for us in the U.S. that Saddam Hussein’s foreign minister was a Christian, one of the nearly 6 per cent of Iraqi Christians most of whom in our day have had to flee a country due to U.S. foreign policy decisions. Indeed, let us not ignore that the suspicion, resentment and revenge directed at most Muslim Arab states by the U.S. foreign policy establishment and U.S. public today compares quite unfavorably with the tolerant treatment and policies of Muslim rulers in Andalucia one thousand years ago.
But more importantly, let us not ignore the fundamental beliefs shared by the three peoples of the Book, characterized by and united in their devotion to one God, Creator of all people and things of the world. Too many of us have ignored, myself included, that “Allah” is the Arabic name for God. So Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians worshipped “Allah” for several centuries before Muhammed lived. The “shahada” testimony of faith, one of the five pillars of Islam, simply declares in Arabic, “There is no god but “Allah”. Muhammed is the messenger of Allah.”
Last Saturday, October 27, eleven Jewish worshippers were killed by a lone gunman wielding an AR -15 semi-automatic rifle in a Pittsburgh synagogue. We cannot measure but neither can we deny the influence of the anti-Muslim language and policies of the current U.S. administration in creating a culture of suspicion and intolerance which leads an unbalanced person to commit such a loathsome act. In this context of our country’s aggressive hostility towards Muslim states and peoples we can be grateful for the rich legacy of the Islamic religion and the Arabic language displayed still in every town of Andalucia, Spain. We return from Andalucia with increased respect and appreciation of that legacy and enhanced gratitude for the presence in our lives of Muslim neighbors in Kansas City.
I close with some words written by one of the most widely read poets of all time, the Christian-Muslim-Sufi-Baha’i Khalil Gibran:
“I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.”
From The Prophet
A gallery of Andalucia photos follows below:
-
- Entry gate to the old Arab town in Ronda, one of the famed “pueblos blancos” or white towns of Andalucia
-
- The baths were located outside but near the main gate to Arab towns to enable bathing and purification before entering.
-
- Entry to modern day Arab baths in Jeréz de la Frontera, Andalucia
Erasing Borders 