– What the Qur’an reveals about the Bible or

How we can know each other. New York Riverside Church .

May 15–17, 2009

By Raheel Raza

A Rabbi, a Minister and an Imam meet in a church in New York – sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. But this was the reality for many people several weekends ago who experienced a positive and uplifting inter-faith conference. Forensic Scriptures: What the Qur’an Reveals about the Bible is the title of a book by Brian Brown, a United Church Minister, who is also the author of Noah’s Other Son: Bridging the Gap between the Bible and the Qur’an. Both the conference and the book, Forensic Scriptures, present the Qur’an as a sacred resource increasingly accessible to Jewish and Christian scholars and students. Islamic primary sources, under the rigorous re-evaluation of Islamic scholars, have today the potential to stimulate the development of new paradigms that can be applied to the sacred scriptures of the three monotheistic religions. The historic conference at Riverside Church in New York, supported by surrounding seminaries and noted scholars, took the first positive step in realizing the potential of shared scholarship in the monotheistic family.

The Forensic Scriptures conference was the brain-child of Brian Brown, who met with me about a year and a half ago searching for ideas and people for this conference. Off the top of my head, I mentioned Laleh Bakhtiar because her translation of the Qur’an (first by a woman) was just published under the title The Sublime Qur’an. Brian asked me if I would consider leading the opening prayers for the conference as many people, not being Muslim, would have neither the ability nor understanding to perform prayers in the tradition of Islam. Upon hearing that leading and respected scholars and academics from the Muslim world were being invited (people like Mahmoud Ayoub, author of Redemptive Suffering in Islam and The Qur’an and Its Interpreters, Faculty Associate in Shi‘ite Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Hartford Seminary; Amir Hussain, author of Oil and Water: Two Faiths, One God, Associate professor in the Department of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University; Hussein Rashid, Professor at Hofstra University and founder of Islamicate.com; and Dr. Bakhtiar), I was hesitant to accept the responsibilities of an imam. I suggested that he first call upon the leading Muslim scholars, but when they offered their blessings I agreed. As a woman leading Muslim prayer, I felt my leadership was not so much a feminist statement as it was an act that upheld human rights and spiritual equality. When Brian started planning how I would lead Asr salat (afternoon prayer) in New York, he had little idea how the conference as a whole would eventually pan out. Fortunately, during the course of events, we discovered that we are both eternal optimists. And the conference turned out to be a wonderful experience.

I arrived in New York with Dr. David Galston, a founder of the Snowstar Institute of Religion and Brock University Chaplain, who is a colleague in interfaith. We dutifully reached Riverside Church, which is an imposing, beautiful building by the Hudson River just behind Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary. Dr. Brad Baxton, author of No Longer Slaves: Galatians and African American Experience, is the Senior Minister of Riverside Church. In his opening comments, he relayed that Riverside has 2,400 members and affiliates. Its members come from more than 40 different denominational, national, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds. They pride themselves on The Three "I"s... being an Interdenominational, Interracial, & International congregation. With our presence, they added a fourth "I": Inter-faith.

The interfaith component was quickly obvious as we gathered for the opening salat (prayer). Amir Hussain had already explained to the congregation what we were doing. The church hall was lined with red carpets and one section especially set aside, facing East, held a single small prayer rug marking the spot where the conference would open. Ruqaiyah Nabe who is studying at New York Theological Seminary rendered a singularly resounding call to prayer and we lined up. Jewish, Muslim and Christian – from many corners of North America—all brought together by one call to acknowledge monotheism’s common and single creator. It was profound. Following salat, Dr. Ayoub recited a Quranic verse and the translation was rendered by Rabbi Justus Baird, Director of The Multifaith Center at Auburn Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Rabbi Baird said that mystics of all faiths have always borrowed ideas from other traditions and that we cannot fully appreciate our own traditions until we understand "the other". It was clarified that we were there to examine each other’s scriptures with respect and in reverence while at the same time standing in our own. Rabbi Baird added, "the wise person is the one who learns from everyone."

This conference was not simply about dialogue and mutual sharing. Of course, dialogue happens regardless, but the conference uniquely opened permission for leading Jewish and Christian scholars to pose searching questions about Islam to respected Muslim colleagues. Equally, it tilled the soil for the shared, critical examination of each monotheistic tradition within a community of students and scholars from each tradition. Among the panelists for the opening session were Max Stackhouse, author of God and Globalization; Phyllis Trible, author of Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narrative; Carol Meyers, author of Discovering Eve and Women in Scripture; Ellen Frankel, author of The Five Books of Miriam: A Woman’s Commentary on the Torah; The Jewish Spirit; and The Illustrated Hebrew Bible. Mahmoud Ayoub, Judith Plaskow, and Laleh Bakhtiar were also among the first panelists.

The session used a roundtable format to discuss Hans Küng’s belief that the nations cannot find peace until religions achieve peace. Moderated by Dr. Brad Braxton, it became apparent that the nature of God in each tradition was the most troubling aspect of the discussion. Professor Trible in particular pointed out that the scriptures do not present a monolithic understanding of God and that, at times, God is rather like a problematic adolescent: punitive, emotional, biased, and relatively selfish.

In another session, Islamic Texts were examined with the employment of critical methods. The question here concerned the role of women in the transmission of the Abrahamic scriptures. David Galston questioned Brian Brown’s thesis that the Q Document was written by the wife of the Apostle James but offered the theory, posed by Mary Rose D’Angelo, that the gospel of Luke was written by a woman. There was also discussion about the likelihood that the women associated with the Prophet Mohammed were literate and, due to their daily interaction with the Prophet, were best situated to record his sayings and recitations. This might have been particularly true of Mohammed’s first wife, Khadijah, who was a successful and very capable business woman.

Several other panel discussions followed. One in particular that I sat on offered reflections from women on women’s experiences in the monotheistic traditions. Despite the differences between the traditions, the basic experiences within each tradition are often remarkably similar. This is especially true in the case of woman. The common challenge for women consistently involves the recognition of women in the historic development of a religious tradition and the right women have, by the witness of history, to hold an equal voice in the life, articulation, and leadership of the faith.

I also sat attentively in many sessions and noted what I believed to be thoughtful and inspiring comments

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Another question that arose during the meeting of the conference related to the global and postmodern nature of religion today. Max Stackhouse said that sometimes converts to a new religion are more pluralistic in their understanding because they continue to straddle two traditions. He made the interesting point that if all the religions of the world were to form one super-religion, the world would be poorer. It is different faiths that make the world rich in colour and tapestry. Sometimes the leading voices of diversity and mutual respect come from those folks who have been able to leave one religion, embrace a second one, but still understand the first religion as an insider. Perhaps he was referring to Ann Holmes Redding, an Episcopalian Priest was recently defrocked for embracing Islam. She said that Christianity has become a religion of global privilege and there is a need to look at Jesus and his message in non-Christian ways. She expressed how Islam had enabled her to get beyond the Christian Jesus and experience his life in a fresh way.

Since the conference constantly involved reflection on the history of each tradition, it was somewhat natural for the conference to end with the question, what would need to be transformed in your tradition for the sake of peace and harmony in the world? Phyllis Trible said that Christianity needed to overcome the chauvinism of supersession (the idea that it has replaced Judaism). Dr. Ayoub said that Muslims have been worshipping Islam and not God. He contrasted the arrogance of religion and the humility of faith.

I will draw my report on this conference to a conclusion with some of the notes I took in the midst of presentations and discussions:

There were students, scholars and skeptics present at this conference and the end result was a networking of different traditions that will keep the momentum of mutual encounter going. For me personally, this conference opened the doors to many thoughts and ideas, which will be studied further. I understood even more profoundly that we are created from the same essence and are all an extension of the same light.