By SHAILA KOSHY 
koshy@thestar.com.my

Vengeance killing was just another day in the life of Imam Dr Muhammad Nurayn Ashafa and Pastor Dr James Movel Wuye. But since 1995, the two Nigerians known worldwide as ‘The Imam and the Pastor’ have been spreading the message of forgiveness, healing and peace through their interfaith initiatives.

THEY used to be arch-enemies but today, Imam Dr Muhammad Nurayn Ashafa and Pastor Dr James Movel Wuye make a good team.

Their life experiences are lessons anyone from any part of the world can learn from if one wants peace in one’s home, neighbourhood, state, country and the world at large and is committed for the long term.

The former militiamen are very serious about their work at the Interfaith Mediation Centre (IMC) in the state of Kaduna in northern Nigeria, and they are very serious about their own religion.

A documentary on their lives and work titled The Imam and the Pastor by the Initiatives of Change’s FLT Films in Britain won the Jacques Chirac Foundation prize for Conflict Resolution in November last year.

Imam Ashafa and Pastor Wuye are learned, wise men and this interview could have ended up a little too “educational” but the two are like an old married couple. The almost three hour-long interview in which both gave honest and open answers was interspersed with jibes as they thrust and parried insults.

Both men were in Malaysia for a series of meetings and workshops courtesy of Moral Re-Armament Initiatives of Change here and had a brief meeting with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in his office on Wednesday.

Although Imam Ashafa and Pastor Wuye were married when they were in the militia, their wives did not know of their status.

“Militant work is secret work. When you go out to kill, you take on a different identity to the kind and gentle one you show at home,” explains Pastor Wuye.

Both men cite historical antecedents as one of the reasons for the deep-seated hatred between the Christians and Muslims in Nigeria. Instead of blaming their colonial masters, they found it easier to turn on each other, proving the saying “the friend of my enemy is my enemy”.

Although both men had strong religious convictions, it didn’t stop them from becoming militants. The hatred was so deep, they justified their violent actions by quoting from scripture.

Pastor Wuye says he now loves Muslims “with no limit” but in the past, his hatred, too, had no limit, making him and Imam Ashafa ripe pickings for certain religious leaders.

Pastor Wuye puts Christian leaders into three categories – the mischievous, who manipulate theology for their own purpose; scholars who know very little; and the moderate majority who know the right thing and do so but are not conspicuous. And it was the first two who mentored him and other hate-filled young Christians like him.

Imam Ashafa has a more Hollywood description for the three approaches of the Muslim leaders – “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”.

He says the Good are the ideal leaders, who follow the principles of their traditions and go beyond greed and fear, but says the Bad are “incapable religious leaders”.

“They went to madrasahs but never made it or have no experience or the wisdom to contextualise scriptural text in the reality of our environment,” he adds.

“They find it easy to demonise the other with scriptural texts and they have been able to mislead hundreds and thousands of followers who see them as the embodiment and custodian of their traditions.”

The Ugly, he says, are mischievous religious leaders who are a font of knowledge but are so possessed by greed, poverty and ego that they can quote and misquote scripture to glorify violence and hate of the other.

He speaks about how he “fell into the hands of the incapable and the mischievous religious leaders”.

In 1995, a meeting involving religious leaders at the Government House in Kaduna brought the two together. They began a journey together but it was far from the perfect civil society alliance as there was mutual mistrust.

Pastor Wuye, who had had his right hand hacked off and was left for dead in a fight, had been harbouring vengeance against Imam Ashafa for years.

Then, Idris Musa, a mutual journalist friend, introduced the two during a coffee break, saying, “I know the two of you. I know you can keep Kaduna state peaceful. That was the beginning of the journey”.

It took them one year to convince those from the Christian and Muslim sides to meet.

“We tried to set up a dialogue to explain the concept of salvation from the two faiths but even then, it was difficult to get people to go,” says Pastor Wuye.

When they finally did, the young men came with daggers in their pockets but found no reason to use them.

Pastor Wuye admits the notion of killing Imam Ashafa was often in his thoughts then. He pretended to work with him for three years, even when they went to school in Birmingham in Britain to learn how to respond to conflict.

But after they went home and travelled from state to state trying to share their newfound values, they had to share a hotel room at times.

“I had from time to time this flashback and I was tempted to use the pillows in the room to suffocate and kill him. But a contrary voice said to me ‘thou shall not kill’.

“I was also intimidated by the fact that if I did, I would be arrested.”

Imam Ashafa also admits to playing a cat and mouse game with Pastor Wuye then, as he, too, “still had thoughts of vengeance”.

Awakenings

After being led astray by “mischievous leaders” and “scholars who know little” as well as “the Bad and the Ugly”, Pastor Wuye and Imam Ashafa had similar life-changing moments.

During a sermon in a mosque one day, Imam Ashafa learnt the simple lesson of how to destroy your enemy – turn him into your friend.

The speaker said: “The power of Islam will bring it. The powerful weapon used by Prophet Muhammad was the power of forgiveness. You give him what he can’t give himself and others. You rehumanise your enemy and give him a second chance. If you do that, then you are the true embodiment of the Islamic tradition.”

Imam Ashafa broke down in tears as the words broke his misconceptions about Islam. After that, his intentions changed and with that came courage, although his militant group was against Pastor Wuye.

Pastor Wuye had his turning point during an encounter with a senior pastor who was trying to get him into a project.

The man said: “James, you cannot preach Jesus Christ with hate. You have to use love to reach out.”

After that, he was “genuinely and sincerely willing to work with Imam”.

While the two had religious awakenings, their former militia members responded to their interfaith initiatives in different ways.

At one point, a fatwa was issued against Imam Ashafa but the Majlis Syura of the Syariah Committee in Kaduna state sat down and discussed the issue and agreed that what he and his team were doing – negotiating and collaborating with the other in order to bring peace and improve human dignity – was in line with the dictates of the Syariah.

“There is a loneliness in putting your vision to test,” he shares. “There is no more talk of eliminating me but I’m still doing my best to get them to join me.”

Today, more than 70% of Muslims support the cause.

Middle path

“There is always another way. It’s not always white and black. As your Prime Minister said at the United Nations recently, we need to re-awaken the people of the middle-course. The middle way I call the highway to heaven. If you can awaken the middle majority, you can check the extreme minorities of the Left and Right.”

Pastor Wuye also faced opposition but his then boss supported his work with Imam Ashafa and told him not to turn back if it could bring peace.

“It’s reasonable that people who are hurting from the violence will find it difficult to accept the middle path. But when I went to training workshops with my arm still bandaged and said we were not giving up this fight, some people saw credibility in what we were doing. I said let’s take the part of Christ which was love and pursue that.”

The Church in Nigeria and the national body of the Christian associations support them today. They have gained ground but both admit there is still much work to do.

One of the first changes they made was to drop “Muslim-Christian” from the name of their civil society organisation and replaced it with “Interfaith” so their work could include other religions.

The IMC intervenes in disputes involving ethnic conflicts, religious conflicts, trauma counselling for young and old women, politicians and governments.

One crisis followed from the death of a woman who had married a Muslim. Her parents lived in another part of Nigeria and they were Christians. According to tradition, the burial takes place in the deceased’s hometown but the husband also wanted to bury his wife.

“The issue was very strong and the country could have ended in war. But we were invited to mediate. It ended successfully after the husband was requested to follow his wife’s corpse to her hometown and have the Imam there bury her,” says Pastor Wuye.

“The husband was satisfied his wife was buried the Muslim way and the parents were satisfied that she was buried at home.”

He added that in cases involving underage children who wanted to change their religion, they had said no.

“They are still under their parents’ custody. They can come back when they turn 18.”

In the matter of conversions, he says they tell those involved in an agreement between the Christians and Muslims in Kaduna that there is no need to celebrate when somebody converts. In cases of apostasy, Pastor Wuye says there are legal procedures to follow to bring the person back to the order and they have to exhaust all of them.

He adds, however, there is an unwritten document, by mutual respect and understanding to prevent violence, that if someone says they love something and then later changes their mind, they say “go”.

“We don’t need to keep two or 40 people. In cases like that, the two groups will meet quickly and see what is the best way out. As a result, there has been no violence.”

The IMC stresses on Christian and Islamic scriptures to promote peace and collaboration. But common sense and respect for human dignity also makes it wrong to kill.

As such, the IMC has 16 different models for use, says Imam Ashafa. Some are hybrid – having secular and religious perspectives; some are purely religious; some are African – from African traditions and culture; others on the core values that band humanity together.

“We are looking for an African answer. What are the cultural values that promote inclusiveness?

“There was once this negotiation that went on for four to five months. When they finally signed the document, we used a cultural dance at the end. Some cultures don’t have forgiveness but have a notion of peace. They don’t say I’m sorry. So we use their traditional dances to glorify peace.”

The IMC has used various models for conflict resolution in Kenya, Burundi, Sierra Leone, northern Ghana and among the Native Americans in Montana.

When they worked with young offenders in prison in Britain, they did not talk religion but used role models to help them discover their sense of being and their humanity.

Both men stress that interfaith is different to attempts to synchronise all religions into one, which they are against.

They stress that intra-religious re-orientation on both sides is crucial when working with the grassroots, that is, to de-programme them and then re-programme them.

“The issue is not about compromising (our faiths) but collaboration in areas that are allowable within our faith,” says Pastor Wuye.

“We also ask how we can be more Muslim or Christian in our context today.”

Both Imam Ashafa and Pastor Wuye say Malaysians are fortunate because they are “still talking”.

“You should concentrate on your peace because war is expensive and peace is cheap,” says Pastor Wuye, who has a son and two daughters.

“Consolidate your peace. This is my message for Malaysia and its young people. Be careful what you are told. If the elders who are now leading you die and leave you a segregated country, you have a challenge. Negative solidarity can destroy, so engage constructively.”

Imam Ashafa, who has two girls and 14 boys, also describes Malaysia as “a gift for the world”.

“Don’t mess it up. Create a system that is very inclusive of minorities. Be a role model for diversity and produce peace ambassadors instead of military peacekeepers.”

Extracts of interview with Imam Dr Muhammad Nurayn Ashafa and Pastor Dr James Movel Wuye.

Q: Even though you had religious convictions, both of you were involved in the militia and in acts of violence. At that time, you used words of scripture to support the killing. Today, you use scripture to promote peace. At which point did you turn from hate to the opposite? It’s easy to talk about love but how do you put it into practice?

Pastor Wuye: My history comes from the fact I was born to a soldier man, who is now late. Secondly, I come from an ethnic group, the aborigines in Kaduna. We feel the ownership of Kaduna. The town is our town. Then we have the intruders, sad to say, the Hausas who are predominantly Muslim. My community – the Gbagyi – were traditionalists before we became Christians.

The British used indirect rule, through the sultanates and emirs to lord over us although we had different cultures, traditions and values. They made us subservient to Islamic culture. They did that for ease of operation to collect taxes. Sometimes we had to pay more than the required amount and our women were forced to carry grain to feed their horses. This was told to us by our parents.

Q: You mean the British or the Muslims?

Pastor Wuye: We didn’t see the British but the Muslims rather because they were the ones lording over us. I grew up with that. At the slightest provocation or even the eclipse of the moon or sun was worrisome for us because the Muslims may attack us…it is one of signs of the end times and they should clean the society.

By cleaning, they attack Christians, our places of worship, brothels and places selling beer in preparation for the end of time. I realised later that that was not what it meant but it exacerbated the hate between me and the Muslims.

It became necessary to checkmate them. I became a militiaman in order to train others because the violence that was meted on us was too much. To checkmate that I had to raise a group of young people like myself and train them in military warfare. It was a change in approach but there is a thin line and you don’t know when defence becomes an offence. My hatred for the Muslims had no limit but I love them now with no limit as well.

I understand more now what these young men were doing with their teachers who could be classified into three different types.

One is the mischievous – they manipulate theology for their own purpose. The second are scholars who know very little. Then there are the moderate majority who know the right thing and are doing it but they are not conspicuous. The first two were the kind of groups that were mentoring us. And in one of the fights I lost my right hand.

That was my background. How I became militia, how Imam and I did not see eye to eye and how we used the papers to fight our war initially. I was on the editorial board of a Christian newspaper (of the Youth Christian Association) and he was on the editorial board of a Muslim newspaper of the National Council of Muslim Youth Organisations. We attacked the faith and wrote what we wanted just to demonise and dehumanise the other.

Iman Ashafa: The preaching of hatred and the hate in me has historical antecedents. We have been an established Islamic civilisation from the 10th century when Islam came to the coast of Africa, to the sub-Saharan desert referred to in Arabic as bilad as-sudan literally meaning the “land of the blacks.”

When they came into our area, of course there was the good, the bad and the ugly with the migration. Islam gave us a new direction, a new system of civility – education system, economic system, judicial and legal system and of course the administrative system. Transparency and accountability was the order of the day.

The British came in the later part of the 19th century in search of treasury. They came to what is called Nigeria today. They conquered the people they called pagans and animists, subdued them and in 1860 made them a British protectorate. They advanced to the north and fought with the Caliphate for 40 years and subdued it in around 1903.

The sultanate was uprooted and the system of governance was changed from an Islamic system where Arabic was the language of communication and literacy to English. My family was known as literate members of the community but (with the switch over) automatically they became illiterate.

The people divided into three main camps. One migrated up north to western Sudan to the Darfur region – 25% of Sudanese are Nigerians who migrated because of bad colonial impositions. The second chose to remain and became passive. They withdrew from the public scene and no longer participated in the system of governance, the education system or socio-political system. They became agrarian farmers and artisans in the native traditions.

The third accepted the British saying it was the accident of history. They worked within the system to see whether they could influence it to bring back the glory of the old days. My family was in the second group, they withdrew from public life.

They became migrants and moved from place to place spreading the message of Islam in the Arabic language. They taught the Quran so we have a lot of madrasahs and produced a lot of talib (one who is seeking religious knowledge). Because of that marginalisation and imposition of western culture and value system, instead of appreciating the modern facilities, we developed a hatred for anything to do with West.

In 1955, they introduced three legal systems when they were leaving – an Islamic court that would deal with family law only; customary court that would also limit itself to family law; and the English common law court which they insisted was superior to all others. All criminal cases like murder and would be handled by the common law court. We were not comfortable but we forced to accept what was presented. They were some of the inner wounds of history which we carry within us.

The economic recession in the late 1970s and 1980s widened the gap between the poor and others. Because of economic factors and the failure of the state system to meet the basic need of our community, we wanted a scapegoat and the friend of our enemy became our enemy, that is our Christian neighbours – who to us adopted the Western culture, Western religion and civilisation.

After the revolution in Iran in 1978, there was an Islamisation drive. A revolution began in our university the next year. The ‘Islam is the Solution’ and ‘We have found Jesus’ campaigns led to a tense situation.

There was bloodshed and over 1,000 people lost their lives as Muslims and Christians attacked each other. Also, the divide and rule policy of the colonial authority, had imposed the rules of one tribe over another. An Islamisation drive moved into a militant drive.

We ended up with an ethno-political conflict when the reality was really about resources. Places of worship were attacked and I felt I had to move into militant training to protect our mosques. We needed to justify our hate.

I would divide our religious leaders into three in terms of their approach – the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The Good are the ideal leaders, follow the principles of their traditions, they go beyond greed and fear. They don’t want acknowledgment or political glorification or gratuity from political leaders. They are harmless as doves but very protective of the dignity and honour of their order. They see divinity is everyone.

The Bad ones are incapable religious leaders. They went to madrasahs but never made it or have no experience or the wisdom to contexualise our scriptural text in the reality of our environment. It is the context that determines the rule of engagement. But these people have no wisdom or experience to be able to differentiate in which context what scripture applies.

Hence they find it easy to demonise the other with scriptural text and they have been able to mislead hundreds and thousands of followers who see them as the embodiment and custodian of their traditions. They are doing this sincerely, but they are sincerely ignorant in misleading.

Islam has experts in many branches but this incapable scholar when you push a question to him, he doesn’t have an answer. So they quote the scripture out to context to find a basis for war and aggression. We have that in our history.

The Ugly are mischievous religious leaders. They are moving encyclopaedia of knowledge but they are possessed by greed, poverty, ego and fight for glorification so they eat and dine with mischievous political leaders who have no vision or passion or virtues. Hence they can quote and misquote scripture and glorify violence and hate of the other.

In my early stage I fell into the hands of the incapable leaders and the mischievous religious leaders.

After I had used violence as a means of addressing the wrongs of history I met a religious leader who spoke about how to destroy your enemy during a Friday sermon. He said, ‘Turn him into your friend. The power of Islam will bring it.

The powerful weapon used by Prophet Muhammad was the power of forgiveness. You give him what he can’t give himself and others. You re-humanise your enemy and give him a second chance. If you do that then you are the true embodiment of the Islamic tradition.’ I cried at his words.

Q: When did the two of you start working together? It has been reported Pastor Wuye that after your right hand had been hacked off and you were left for dead, you hated Imam Ashafa for three years.

Pastor Wuye: Yes, that is true. We met in 1995 at the Government House in Kaduna when the wife of the Governor of our state invited us. In our country the Muslims, particularly, have a challenge with immunisation of their children for polio.

They thought that it was a deliberate ploy by the West to sterilise their children so that when they grow up they cannot procreate. They needed religious leaders to educate the people and I was invited to represent the Christian body. He was invited to represent the Muslim body. That’s how we met. A journalist – Idris Musa – who knew me and him brought him to me during the coffee break. He said, ‘James, this is Imam Ashafa. I know the two of you. I know you can keep Kaduna state peaceful. That was the beginning of the journey.

But I was suspicious of him and he of me. He was more pushy and trying to find a way to eliminate me. Where we met, we could not fight. If we had met anywhere else I don’t know what I would have done. My training was high and I had the ability to disarm, hit and kill.

And he was a student of Comparative Religion. He studied the Bible in order to find fault with it and I knew he wanted to humiliate me in a debate. But I had never read the Quran. I had been told by my Muslim friends when I was a child not to touch it or I would go ‘psychiatric.’

I had only read about the behaviour of Muslims in my state and it was more cultural behaviour of the Hausa. In my state, the name Hausa is synonymous with Muslim. Every Hausa man in northern Nigeria is perceived to be Muslim and you cannot change your faith except by divine intervention or you are convinced by the Almighty to change. Even if my people the Gbagyi become Muslim, we say they are now Hausa, like I hear in Malaysia about Malays and Muslims.

It took us one year to convince the officers from the Christian and Muslims sides to meet. He kept pushing me and he used the occasion of my late mother’s illness to visit me. It was easier for me to yield to anybody who showed me love in my time of distress.

We tried to set up a dialogue to explain the concept of salvation from two faiths but even then it was difficult to get people to go. When they did come, the young men came with daggers in their pockets to be ready just in case. But there was no trouble. The British Council in Kaduna had given us the space for the meeting because no one else would give a place for two militant groups to meet. They were interested in what we were doing and so we said why don’t we do it.

The name of the organisation then was Consortium of the Muslim-Christian Youth Dialogue Forum which was later changed to Muslim-Christian Dialogue which grew later to Interfaith Mediation Centre. We felt we should open doors to other faiths to understand the models that we have.

How did I work with him and still tempted to kill him? That question is very important. I pretended to work with him for three years. We went to school in Birmingham, UK, together to learn how to respond to conflict. Then we came home and went from state to state trying to share our new found values. Sometimes the hotel in a town won’t have two rooms and we had to share twin-beds.

At that point, I had from time to time this flashback and I was tempted to use the pillows in the room to suffocate and kill him. But a contrary voice said to me “thou shall not kill”.

I was also intimidated by the fact that if I did do it I would be arrested. I left that ambition for two years until I had an encounter with a senior pastor who trying to get me into a project for the evangelisation of Muslims. He said, “James, you cannot preach Jesus Christ with hate. You have to use love to reach out.” I came back transformed, genuinely and sincerely willing to work with Imam. That was my turning point.

Imam Ashafa: When I met James in 1995 I played a cat and mouse game with him as I still had thoughts of vengeance. But after my transformation my intentions changed and with that came courage although my militant group was against James. When I heard his mother was ill I visited her in hospital with some friends. And when she died a few days later, we mourned with him. From then on I did everything possible to show him the ideal principle of Islam.

Q: Even after both of you came together in 1995 you still had your suspicions of each other and thoughts of vengeance. Why would your friends, who had the same beliefs you had earlier but hadn’t had their own moment of transformation follow you? How do you reach out to them because they are part of the circle of violence?

Imam Ashafa: My militant friends were divided into three groups – those who thought I had compromised, those who saw me as a traitor to be stopped by all means, and those who said okay but had no will power to follow me. All of us had lost family and property in this circle of violence. There has to be another way.

I knew I was not compromising the values and traditions of Islam and thought we can be better if we can connect by our shared values. I was threatened, a fatwa was issued against me but the Majlis Syura of the Syariah Committee in Kaduna state sat down and discussed the issue and agreed that what I and my team of 12 were doing was in line with the dictates of the Syariah; to negotiate and collaborate with the other in order to bring peace and improve human dignity is acceptable.

There is a loneliness in putting your vision to test. Are yours really true?

There is no more talk of eliminating me. I’m still doing my best to get to them. Today, more than 70% of Muslims in Nigeria support our cause. There is always another way. It’s not always white and black. As your Prime Minister said at the UN, we need to re-awaken the people of the middle-course. The middle-way I call the high-way to heaven. If you can awaken the middle majority you can check the extreme minorities of the Left and Right.

Pastor Wuye: There were those who saw Imam as mischievous and decided to break the (interfaith) relationship. A number of them left the consortium. There was a rift in the Muslim side as well. But two of my former milita said they saw the reality of Christianity in these negotiations and would go with me. We started meeting Christian groups. My boss then told me he believed in what I was doing and if what I was doing with Imam Ashafa would bring peace to go ahead and don’t turn back.

A few elders in my church wanted to investigate whether I was still a Christian and wondered whether they should take Holy Communion with me because they did not see me representing Christianity. That was the main challenge.

It’s reasonable that people who are hurting from the violence will find it difficult to accept the middle path. But when I went to training workshops with my arm still bandaged and said we are not giving up this fight some people saw credibility in what we are doing.

I said let’s take the part of Christ which is love and pursue that. There are many grounds to conquer and more people to convert to the path of peace. Those who are hurting will find it hard to let go. In April, the wife of a man – who was in milita with me and had been killed in 1992 – said she could only come see me now because she had held me responsible for his death and had only just learnt to let go.

The Church in Nigeria supports this movement today and the national body of the Christian associations support us. Because of the example that we showed with Imam Ashafa, the Nigerian National Religious Council that was constituted originally as a political group to solve religious problems have taken the path of Imam and myself. We are gaining ground but we still have much work to do with those who are grieving.

Q: You changed your name to Interfaith to include other religions. What are some of the disputes that come to the IMC?

Pastor Wuye: Other than Islam (50.4% followers) and Christianity (48.2%), there are minute pockets who follow the African traditional faith, a hybrid between Christianity and African traditional faith or Islam and African traditional faith, Judaism – Nigerians not from Ethiopia, Hare Krishna, Baha’i, Jehovah’s Witness and Chrislam – a hybrid of Christianity and Islam.

We changed the name to Interfaith because there are challenges of the African tradition in the Niger Delta and we need to bring them on board. We give them a place to meet, to cry if they want to and to mediate.

The disputes that we intervene in involve ethnic conflicts, religious conflicts, trauma counselling for young and old women, politicians and government.

One crisis involved followed from the death of a woman, who had married a Muslim. She died in a car accident. Her parents lived in another part of Nigeria and they were Christians. The tradition is that when a person dies they are taken back to the home town for burial but here the husband also wanted to bury his wife.

The issue was very strong and the country could have ended in war. But we were invited to mediate. It ended successfully after the husband was requested to followed his wife’s corpse to her home town and have the Imam there bury her. Both had their desires met – husband was satisfied his wife was buried the Muslim way and the parents were satisfied that she was buried at home.

Q: The parents did not insist she be buried according to Christian rites?

Pastor Wuye: No, they acknowledged that she was a Muslim and died a Muslim. That could have been devastating. The priest also openly acknowledged that she was no longer a member but was a Muslim.

We also have underage children who want to change their religion, we say no. They are still under their parents’ custody. They can come back when they turn 18.

In the matter of conversion we are careful to let people know – it is not legally written but there is an agreement between the Christians and Muslims in Kaduna, Nigeria – that once somebody converts, there is no need to celebrate. Because celebration brings about anger and feeling of defeat and that can escalate into a crisis.

Q: Does the syariah system in Nigeria require a person of another faith to convert if he or she wants to marry a Muslim?

Imam Ashafa: In the Islamic tradition, a Christian or Jewish woman is free to marry a Muslim and keep her faith. This is the practice in Nigeria. But a woman outside the Abrahamic tradition will have to convert before she can marry me. That is the price she will have to pay to marry me. This is Islamic tradition.

Pastor Wuye: She may choose to convert if she wants to but that is not the law in Nigeria. There are Christian women in Nigeria who have married Muslim men and have kept their faith.

Q: What happens with their children?

Pastor Wuye: They follow the father’s religion.

Q: And if the father is Christian and the wife is Muslim?

Pastor Wuye: There very few such marriages and usually they would have gone against their parents’ wishes.

Where there is riddah (apostasy) there are certain legal procedures to follow to bring the person back to order and they have to exhaust all of them.

In Nigeria we have worked on an unwritten document, by mutual respect and understanding so we don’t have violence; if someone says they love something and then later does not love it, we say ‘go’. We don’t need to keep two or 40 people. When we have cases like that the two groups will meet quickly and see what is the best way out. As a result, there has been no violence.

Q: Your website says that your initiative stresses on Christian and Islamic scriptures to promote peace and collaboration. But common sense and respect for human dignity will also tell you it is wrong to kill. What model would you use in countries where religion is not the primary foundation of the people?

Imam Ashafa: In Kenya, the conflict in 2008 was ethno-political rather than ethno-religious. It was Christians killing Christians and destroying each others’ place of worship. There we used a model based on connectors and disconnectors to help them find the middle ground and what are their shared cultural values to help them re-engage with each other. We never quoted the scriptures, except when Pastor had a session on trauma healing.

We have 15 different models. Some are hybrid – secular and religious perspectives; some are purely religious models; some are African – from African traditions and culture; some on the core values that band humanity together.

Christianity and Islam are eastern religions but they are not African religions even though they breathe and are sustained in Africa.

We are looking for an African answer. What are the cultural values that promote inclusiveness? There was once this negotiation that went on for four to five months. When they finally signed the document, we used cultural dance to end. Some cultures don’t have forgiveness but have a notion of peace. They don’t say I’m sorry. So we use their traditional dances to glorify peace.

When we went to Burundi, we searched for common ground and looked for heroes of peace among the Hutus and Tutsis.

In Sierra Leone we collaborated to identify religious instruments. In our interventions in the northern part of Ghana in the late 1990s between the Kokombas and Nanumbas we also used religious instruments. In a very religious country like Nigeria the religious approach becomes the paramount paradigm here to enter negotiations and break the circle of violence.

When we worked with the native Americans in Montana, spirituality is very deep among them and we used that to help them.

When we worked with the young offenders in prison in the UK, we did not talk religion but used role-models to help them discover their sense of being and their humanity.

Q: Are there those who fear that interfaith initiatives will meld all religions into one?

Imam Ashafa: There is a misconception in some parts of the world as to what is interfaith. Especially since there is a different movement to synchronise all religions into one, a melting pot rather than a rojak. I am against that.

Interfaith is not a melting-pot of religions but is about building bridges on shared values to work together for the collective protection of our human dignity, our environment and our space. Only collectively can we fight hatred and promote love and peace. Those who believe in this process should support interfaith initiatives.

Q: Many interfaith dialogues are held behind closed doors in Malaysia among among academics or the elite in society in a ‘civilised’ fashion. But when conflicts involving religion conversion are discussed in a public forum, people get emotional and angry. They seem unable to rise above that. How would you reach the people on the street who live ordinary lives that may result in conflict with those of other ethnicity or faith.

Pastor Wuye: What we did was to go with the grassroot champions, moving spirits, who are orators. We got them to come to out meetings. On both sides you have to do what we call intra-religious re-orientation, that is, de-programme them and then re-programme them. Then you have to compare notes and Imam and I do. As we’ve said, the issue is not about comprising (our faiths) but collaboration in areas that are allowable within our faith.

We also ask how we can be more Muslim or Christian in our context today. Our centre does not even permit people who are not seriously motivated by their religion. We want those who are deep in their faith to engage with the other.

Malaysians are very fortunate that they are still talking. When people feel greatly marginalised there is a killing spirit. You should concentrate on your peace because war is expensive and peace is cheap. Ask the US how much they have spent in Afghanistan and Iraq? What is the reason for their economic recession?

There is a rock that has been set by your Prime Minister. You are a test case. The world is watching Malaysia. You are inviting people to come here. What plans do you have if you are overwhelmed by such visitors and feel a threat to the status quo? If the status quo does not create policies to deal with those who are coming into their terrain there will be a struggle for resources. That struggle can be triumph and can get sympathy under religion.

So religious leaders must stand up now and collaborate. Don’t end up like Nigeria. Consolidate your peace. This is my message for Malaysia and its young people. Be careful what you are told. If the elders who are now leading you die and leave you a segregated country, you have a challenge. Negative solidarity can destroy so engage constructively. It’s better to shed a drop of sweat in dialogue than a pint of blood in war.

Imam Ashafa: The Initiatives of Change (in Britain) has a programme to create role models. We need role models and heroes of peace at the grassroots to engage with them. You can have dialogues in a safe room at a hotel or university but you need to move it to under the palm tree and coconut tree as well and engage with the incapable and mischievous scholars.

Here, the Muslims are the majority so they don’t see the cracks from the minority order. It is time for the other committed minority within the faith tradition to team together for a powerful network to engage with the dominant majority at the grassroots level.

Q: Were you single or married when you were in the militia? How did it affect your family life? Have your children followed you in your interfaith journey?

Imam Ashafa: Militant work is secret work. Your wife will not know. When you go out to kill you take on a different identity to the kind and gentle one you show at home. I was married in 1983. I have 16 children, of whom two are girls.

Q: How many wives do you have?

Imam Ashafa: I’m a true conservative Muslim. I have two, for now.

Pastor Wuye: I have three children, also two girls. My son, he’s now 25, was born when I was in the militia. I left the militia before my third child, now 14, was born. My wife didn’t know I was in the militia until I lost my hand. In fact she didn’t really know how it happened until I told her a few years after. My son is interested in the work. He is a Sociology graduate and is looking to do further studies in relation to dispute resolution. My elder daughter is studying mass communications and the other is still in school.

Imam Ashafa: Malaysia, is a gift for the world. You have the ability to manage your diversity and the visionary leadership you have, who are able to move your country from an agrarian society in the 1960s to a technologically developing nation. Don’t mess it up. Create a system that is very inclusive of minorities. Be a role model for diversity and produce peace ambassadors instead of military.