Week 4 Day 1

As we fast and pray we cannot help but come to the realisation that our world is in trouble; and religion, which was meant to make things better, has often made things worse. We do not suffer from the lack of religion, but from the lack of love. So, if we are to have any hope of survival, we need to find a way to be able to care for ourselves, and for our world, once again. It is my view that the radical spirituality of compassion that we remember when we recite the Bismillah is not merely our best hope for the world; it is our only hope for the world. Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim.

Week 4 Day 2

How can we interpret our sacred texts in a way that reflects a radical spirituality of compassion? We invited our Muslim friends to share with us the way they go about it. They said. ‘Every sura in the Qur’an except one, begins with “Bismillahi ir Rahman ir Rahim – In the name of God the most Gracious and most Compassionate”. And we have come to believe we should use that invocation as a hermeneutic to interpret the text in the light of the Spirit. Thus to interpret the text in the light of the Spirit of God, all our interpretations must be consistent with the grace and compassion of God.’

Week 4 Day 3

When my Muslim friends told me they believe they need to interpret the Qur’an according to the Bismillah, in the light of the amazing Grace and Compassion of God, even if it contradicts a human interpretation of sharia law, I jumped for joy. ‘That’s wonderful!’ I said. ‘I think what you are doing is great. I think Jesus would think what you are doing is great too; because he did exactly the same as what you are doing with the Qur’an with the Torah; including being willing to challenge human interpretations of the law in the light of God’s amazing Grace and Compassion.’

Week 4 Day 4

Jesus said the ‘greatest’ commandment in the bible was to ’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’. And the next was to `Love your neighbour as yourself’. ‘All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.’(Matt.22.37-40) So, as far as Jesus was concerned, everything in the Bible needed to be interpreted in the light of these two commandments. Jesus seemed to have no qualms about quoting only the bits of scripture he thought were consonant with these, and contradicting those bits of scripture he thought were not.[1]

Week 4 Day 5

On Eid al-Fitr al-Mubarak, October 13th 2007 C.E., a gathering of Muslim Leaders wrote an Open Letter to Christian Leaders. In this letter they said: ‘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 basis for this peace already exists. It is part of the very foundational principles of both faiths: love of the One God, and love of the neighbour. These principles are found in the sacred texts of both Islam and Christianity’.[2]

Week 4 Day 6

We may be family, but it doesn’t mean we are not going to fight. However Abdul Ghaffar Khan reminds us, if we do fight, the ‘weapon of the Prophet’ is ’sabr’ or ‘patience’. ‘If you exercise patience, victory will be yours. No power on earth can stand against it.’ He quotes the Qur’an saying, ‘there is no compulsion in religion’; ‘forgive and be indulgent’; ‘render not vain your almsgiving by injury;’ ‘whosoever kills one – for other than manslaughter – it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind.’[3]

Week 4 Day 7

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan says ‘God is Peace or As-Salam’. He says ‘the very word ‘Islam (from the Arabic silm) means peace.’ So, ‘according to the Prophet, peace is a prerequisite of Islam’. He says ‘a Muslim is one from whose hands people are safe’.[4] Oh, that this were true, for all Muslims, Christians and Jews. And it can be true if we allow ourselves to be born again in the spirit of the Bismillah, inhaling the Bismillah with every breath and embodying the Bismillah with every beat of our heart through every vein in our head, our hands, our feet. ‘Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim!’