Building an Understanding

By Mirko Petricevic - Waterloo Record - Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Saturday, June 2, 2007

Once the protesters departed, Muslim and Mennonite scholars meeting in Waterloo exchanged kind words

On the morning this week after angry protesters shouted down a meeting of Mennonite scholars and Muslim clerics at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, the mood in the room could not have been more different.

As the Muslim clerics entered the college lecture hall on Tuesday, their Mennonite hosts sprang from their seats, shook their guests' hands and hugged them like dear, old friends.

It was their third meeting, part of a nine-year peace-building program between the Mennonite Central Committee and the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute, which is based in Qom, Iran.

Critics object to the relationship because the institute has strong ties to the Iranian government, which in turn has a poor human rights record.

Although protesters prevented the academics from speaking on Monday, during the following two-and-a-half days they shared meals, presented papers and taught each other about the foundations of their faiths.

It's not possible to summarize the breadth and depth of their dialogue here. But the following are snippets from the presentations they made, mostly gleaned during brief interviews:

AN OVERVIEW
The division between Sunni and Shiite Muslims is often explained as simply a disagreement over political leadership, said Hajj Muhammad Legenhausen, who lectures on Western philosophy and Christianity in Qom.

However, there's a more fundamental difference based in their approaches to spirituality, Legenhausen said.

Shiites generally teach there are five spirits that work on human beings. Ordinary humans are aware of four -- faith, strength, appetite and motion. Only a few people, prophets and imams, have the guidance of an angel.

"The prophet is purified by seeing what others don't," Legenhausen said. "You can't understand properly what the Qur'an has to say unless (it's delivered) through the spirit that you find in the guidance of the imams."

Arnold Snyder, professor of history at Conrad Grebel, gave an overview of how early Mennonites, in the 16th century, practised their faith. Rather than putting their trust in a few designated priests for spiritual guidance, they turned to Scripture.

Memorizing Scripture was an important practice. Their proficiency in learning verses by heart is documented in court records of heresy trials of early Mennonites. Sometimes, frustrated jailers removed Bibles from an accused person's prison cell to keep him or her from memorizing more.
But that didn't completely remove the Gospel from the Mennonites.

"They still had the Bible between their ears," Snyder said.

ON TRINITY AND ON KNOWING GOD
Islam emphasizes the singularity of God, said James Reimer, teacher of religion and theology at Conrad Grebel.

Christians also reject polytheism in favour of monotheism, he said.

However, Christians use the language of the Trinity -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit -- when describing God.

Reimer argued that contemporary Mennonites must retrieve a "very strong emphasis" on the Trinity to underpin their social ethics. "The three have everything in common -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit -- they are one and equal with each other," Reimer said. "That becomes our analogy of how human beings should have everything in common and be one with each other."

In his presentation, Ali Mesbah described the world as being only a tiny part of reality.
"The tip of the iceberg, so to speak. The main part is hidden from our senses," said Mesbah, a professor of philosophy at the institute in Qom.

"The essential part of the world is the spiritual, hidden, unseen, world."

Mesbah likened understanding reality to reading a passage of writing.
There is the surface meaning -- what the words literally convey.
But there's also a sub-text which relates a deeper meaning, Mesbah said.
"Religion is one of the main sources (for) providing humans with deeper meaning."

ON SPIRITUAL POVERTY
When the Prophet Muhammad asked followers the meaning of bankruptcy, some replied it was a state of economic failure, said Mohammad Ali Shomali, head of the religions department at the institute in Qom.

But the Prophet answered that in the afterlife, people will be shown their personal balance sheets.

"Certain people find it's empty of good deeds," Shomali said. "This is the most painful poverty."
Spiritual poverty -- super-humility in the face of God -- is a goal, he said. We achieve that poverty when we totally understand that all our blessings come from God. All we have is just a loan from God that must be repaid.

"And if you are not careful, you may become bankrupt," Shomali said.

Thomas Finger, an independent American scholar, said spiritual poverty is not the same as economic poverty, but Mennonites can't really talk about one without dealing with the other.
Having spiritual poverty means you have come to a state when you're willing to give up wealth or anything that clutters your life, Finger said.

But if a person responds to God, his or her economic situation often improves. So the challenge is to retain an attitude of reliance on God as you accumulate wealth, he added.

"That's a struggle always to put those in perspective."

ON MYSTICISM
Sufism is sometimes understood as being the equivalent of Muslim mysticism.
But that's only partly true, said Mohammad Fanaei, an associate professor of philosophy and mysticism at the Houze seminary in Qom.

Fanaei said mysticism is the deeper understanding and practice of religion and that there's no genuine mysticism outside of religion.

Religion has esoteric (inward spiritual) teachings and exoteric (outward, ritual, sharia and theology) teachings. "These two are complementary to each other. We cannot replace mysticism with religion or vice versa," Fanaei said.

The word "sufism" describes different orders, groups or schools of mysticism, but mysticism is also practised outside organized groups, he said.

David Shenk, author and former administrator of the U.S.-based Eastern Mennonite Missions, presented a paper alongside Mohammad Fanaei.
Muslim mystics teach the notion of ascending spiritualities in which a person exercises spiritual disciplines which help elevate him or her into ever higher realms of spirituality, Shenk said.
Eventually the believer becomes absorbed into divinity.

But in Christianity, Shenk explained, the union is "God taking initiative, in Jesus, coming to meet us. He comes down to meet us.

"So it's not that we ascend, but we receive the gift of grace which he pours out to us in Christ."

ON RITUAL AND MORALS
Having a high level of morals leads to harmonious social relations, says Aboulfazl Sajedi, a professor of the philosophy of religion.

Prayers, conducted five times a day, help cultivate positive relationships because they begin with the words: In the name of God, the most compassionate, the most merciful.

"A good Muslim is someone who is going to be close to God," Sajedi said. "Meaning that (he) should acquire God's attributes as much as he can."

Frequent prayers are constant reminders to strive to acquire God's attributes. A person's innate nature is moral, he added, but the material world separates a person from his or her nature.

Mennonites use rituals as much as other religious groups, said Irma Fast Dueck, a professor of practical theology at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg.

When her congregation takes communion, nobody leaves the pews. Instead, plates of bread are distributed. But nobody holds the plate and takes a piece of bread themselves. Instead, everyone serves their neighbour, Dueck said.

"That's Mennonite theology at its best. The communal emphasis. Serving each other."

And nobody eats the bread until everyone in the congregation has been served a piece. Then, worshippers eat as a community, as one body of Christ, she said.

ON POLITICS AND SPIRITUALITY
Shiite spirituality provides self-corrections to the relationship between humans and the material world, said Mahmoud Namazi Esfahani, professor of Islamic philosophy and theology.
Before the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, society was too capitalistic, Esfahani said.

"Islam says possessing wealth . . . is no problem. But if you belong to it in a way that it is (worldly) entities that direct you, it's not acceptable."

The revolution, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was a self-correction, Esfahani said.
Khomeini wasn't driven by the desires of the material world, Esfahani said.

"It is natural for the faithful to follow a pious faqih (senior jurist) who has nothing in mind except to erect the will of God."

Mennonites traditionally had an uneasy relationship to government, said Harry Hueb-ner, professor of philosophy and theology at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, Man.
Though the tension has mostly subsided, it still continues today.

Some, like Old Order colonies, isolate themselves. But more contemporary Mennonites look to a 1995 confession of faith which promotes engagement with government.

"Profound love of God . . . has implications in all aspects of life," Huebner said. "Every facet of life." That belief is based partly on the story of the Good Samaritan.
"Loving God and neighbour is really the spirituality and politics brought together."

ON PRAYER
"We believe that everyone needs to connect with Allah, to talk with Allah," said Aboulhassan Haghani, director of International Affairs for the institute in Qom.

"But how can we talk with Allah?"

Haghani said Shiite Muslims look to the prophets and historic imams. "These prophets know better (than) us," Haghani said. "So we should follow them."

Thursday nights, Shiites read a supplication by Imam Ali, the first Shiite leader after the Prophet Muhammad.

"Oh Thou who art the most holy! Oh Thou who existed before the foremost! Oh Thou who shall exist after the last!" reads the prayer, which takes 25 minutes to read.

Jon Hoover, assistant professor of Islamic Studies at the Near East School of Theology in Beirut, presented an examination of The Lord's Prayer in which Christians call for God's Kingdom to come and for His will to be done.

That indicates God hasn't yet completed His work on Earth, Hoover said.

And the part calling on God to "lead us not into temptation" is a call for God to finish the job, Hoover added.
"We have a strong foretaste of the Kingdom in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus," Hoover said. "So I prefer to speak of the Kingdom already here in Christ, and to some degree in the church, but not yet complete."


[Pictures, from left to right: Bryant, a religious studies professor at Renison College in Waterloo, speaks with Aboulhassan Haghani, director of international affairs at the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom; U.S. Mennonite scholar and author David Shenk and Aboulfazl Sajedi, a professor of philosophy of religion in Qom, Iran, have a discussion at Conrad Grebel University College.]