Imams, priests urged to work together

A highly regarded US Muslim scholar has urged Filipino imams and priests not to isolate themselves and instead eat, attend meetings and walk and talk together since this may help highlight religious tolerance to bring more stability to the country.

Imam Talal Eid, of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, said the set-up works well for the United States and may work well for the Philippines, too.

In an interview with The STAR, the imam, founder and executive religious director of the Islamic Institute of Boston, said he emphasized interfaith dialogue and its importance between Muslims and Christians during a series of lectures on conflict resolution that he conducted in universities in Metro Manila, Marawi, Zamboanga and Cotabato this month.

“I emphasized interfaith dialogue, I addressed this issue, the importance of establishing the dialogue between Muslims and Christians, which I know is already existing but we have to strengthen that and there is something we do in the US that may be good here, where the imam, ministers and priests go together and attend meetings together. They invite each other, the priest would take his congregation to the mosque and the imam would take his congregation to the church and they eat together. They exchange ideas on how to strengthen their relationship. Maybe I would like to see it here also,” Eid said.

“Maybe you need to try this. You need to encourage the clergy. Its importance is it highlights religious tolerance. I believe this will bring more stability to the country,” he added.

The imam said tension exists because the relationship between Muslims and Christians is always associated with the past marked by conflict and suspicion.

“Unless you find ways to bury the past and do what the Germans did, they went to the (Berlin) Wall and destroyed the wall because this wall was separating them. And today you see united Germans. There must be some efforts by Muslims and Christians to replace the old image with a new image,” he said.

A great deal of effort, he said, is needed to show the level of compromise being done and the Muslims also need to highlight the position of Islam.

“When you establish trust in this society, life would be easy and then you would find the tension gradually disappearing and love will replace the tension,” he said.

He explained that the issue of separation of Church and State is very clear for governments like the US, but the government is supporting interfaith activities.

“Is this religious? No. This is social,” Eid said.

Muslims like him, he said, belong to the minority in the US but he never felt he was a minority because as an American national he has equal rights and equal opportunities.

He encouraged Filipino Muslims to be involved in dialogue with the government on important concerns like equal opportunity and not to treat and speak in general about issues that do not affect all Muslims.

Muslims in the US, he said, are active in the political arena and instead of isolating themselves, they address their concerns, like the lack of presence of Muslims in government agencies.

“We started to address it and talk about it among ourselves. If we want to be involved in government agencies, we need to apply for jobs and we need qualified people,” he said.

Muslims in the US had been reaching out even before the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001.

“This was already done but the tragedy can be more serious, can damage relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims especially if you look at the issue of revenge. But American people are highly educated and we know the issue of revenge does not exist in our society. What exists is law. If someone did something bad to me, the court, the judge will handle the case,” he said.