Blogging the Omer, Days 27 & 28: Interfaith in Qatar
Week Four, Day Six
Yesod of netzach
Week Four, Day Seven
Malchut of Netzach
Last week a group of rabbis – including two from Israel met in Qatar when that country opened its first scholarly center for interfaith interfaith dialogue as part of a broader push for interfaith relations throughout that region.
Ynet reports
Efforts at interfaith dialogue got one of their biggest boosts when Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah met with Pope Benedict XVI last November at the Vatican.
In March, the Saudi king then made an impassioned plea for dialogue among Muslims, Christians and Jews — the first such proposal from a nation with no diplomatic ties to Israel and a ban on non-Muslim religious services and symbols.
But someone tell the right not to let it affect their opinion of Islam as inherently a religion of all bad things.
For more background on the current wave of Muslim outreach toward the Jewish community — and the reaction from the American Jewish organizations — check out this essay by Rabbi Alan Brill.
Maybe they were inspired by BZ’s trip?
I don’t hear people from the right claiming that Islam is “inherently a religion of all bad things”. Making blanket statements like that is as silly as claiming that Islam is “a religion of peace”. (Of course there are wackys on both sides who can say whatever they want, but let’s talk mainstream.) A lot of people on the right do say that Islam is demonstrating itself to be incompatible with the modern world and that it needs to reform itself towards some decent standards of human rights and tolerance. That doesn’t seem so controversial.
In any event the Saudi king announcing his “support” for an interfaith meeting is part of the Saudi government PR effort to convince irate Westerners that their country also supports non-violent encounters between Muslims and non-Muslims. It might carry a bit more seriousness if the Saudis could admit the right of the Jewish people to their own tiny land and state, and not only to be disempowered religionists dependent upon the kindness of strangers for their survival.