A Common Word
Muslim religious leaders and scholars have sent an open letter to the Pope and other Christian leaders urging greater understanding of the commonalities between the two faiths. The letter, titled “ A Common Word Between Us and You,” marks the Eid al-Fitr al-Mubarak, the festival that is the end of Ramadan, and the one year anniversary of the open letter of 38 Muslim scholars to H.H. Pope Benedict XVI.
In the letter, the authors “invite Christians to come together with us on the basis of what is common to us, which is also what is most essential to our faith and practice: the Two Commandments of love.” The letter goes on to review how both the Muslim prophets and the Christian Bible define these two commandment—the “Love of God” and the “Love of the Neighbour”—to identify the common ground between the two religions.
It concludes with a call for every effort to establish peace, harmony and good will between the two religions: “And to those who nevertheless relish conflict and destruction for their own sake or reckon that ultimately they stand to gain through them, we say that our very eternal souls are all also at stake if we fail to sincerely make every effort to make peace and come together in harmony.”
This historic document is signed, among others, by the Grand Muftis of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, Croatia, Kosovo and Syria, the Secretary-General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the former Grand Mufti of Egypt and the founder of the Ulema Organisation in Iraq. You can download a copy of the complete letter from the BBC here.
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