Traveling
through the Middle East
Jordan, where Christians and Muslims live in peace
By Father Gregory J. Fairbanks
Special to The CS&T
Part 2, Jordan
Last week I wrote about my reflections on a trip I made with the Jewish
Community Relations Council (JCRC) as part of an interfaith contingent
to Israel from Jan. 29 through Feb. 5.
This week I will reflect on a second trip to the Middle East, from Feb.
23 through March 4. That journey was a trip to Jordan and Egypt as part
of a program titled, “Islam: Scholarship and Practice in the U.S.”
It was sponsored by America-Mideast Educational and Training Services,
Inc. (Amideast) which is a private, non-profit organization that works
to strengthen mutual understanding and cooperation between Americans
and the people of the Middle East and North Africa.
For me, the Amideast trip was part two of a visit by a delegation of
Imams (Muslim clerics) and academics from Jordan, Syria and Egypt to
Philadelphia, and their visit to St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in the
previous February. At that time, the Muslim delegation and our Seminary
administration had a roundtable discussion on the formation of clerics
in both Catholic and Muslim traditions. I was invited to participate
in this year’s return trip, which was funded by the State Department.
It was my first trip to Egypt but I had visited Jordan before, in 2001.
To place our trip in further context, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
was raging in Gaza during our trip, and the offensive Danish cartoons
about Muhammad had just been reprinted.
Those events were the constant, immediate context of our conversations
in both Jordan and Egypt. The contingent was to have a representative
from each of the four U.S. cities the Imams had visited in the United
States, the idea being that one Catholic, one Protestant, one Muslim
and one Jew would be included in the trip. Unfortunately, two of the
four persons who had been invited could not go, so the contingent consisted
only of a Jewish woman who runs an interfaith center outside Boston,
and me.
We met with many different individuals in Jordan and Egypt — government,
religious, and academic leaders. Most of our visits were to Muslims,
but we did meet with a Melkite Catholic priest in Jordan who is very
much involved in interfaith relations, as well as a Presbyterian minister
in Egypt.
In both Jordan and Egypt we met with Christian organizations; in neither
Jordan nor Egypt is there much of a Jewish population.
Within the context of Christian–Muslim relations, several foreign
Christian missionaries in Jordan had recently been expelled.
That prompted our discussion of religious rights in Jordan, a country
where Christians and Muslims live together in peace. There is relatively
little trouble there, especially compared to some other Middle Eastern
nations.
The dispute in the expulsion case is somewhat complex. Jordan is a nation
in which Islam is the state religion and Christianity is a protected
minority faith. Christians and Muslims are all Arabs and fellow countrymen.
Jordan has a Council of Churches that represent the legally recognized
Christian denominations in the country (Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant).
As a Muslim nation, it is illegal to proselytize Muslims. Christian
missionaries are permitted to proselytize only other Christians.
Several of the Christian leaders, themselves, protested against the
‘foreigners’ who were proselytizing among the Christian
population. The Christians are well aware of their minority status (about
5-to-6 percent of the population) and are eager to avoid any hint of
Christianity being considered a foreign entity within Jordanian society.
To our Western sensibilities, the idea of legally limiting the right
of persons to choose their own faith is quite foreign. However, the
position of the Christian minority is understandable, especially considering
how Christians are facing threats in other parts of the Muslim world.
When we asked about the legality of conversion to Christianity from
Islam, the answer was always, “Yes, it is permitted.” However,
when further penetrating questions were asked — such as inheritance
rights, and marriage and children questions, it became apparent that
conversion away from Islam, while theoretically possible, is for all
practical purposes impossible. At the same time, Jordan is among the
most permissive of Middle Eastern Muslim nations.
In Jordan, we had the opportunity to meet many persons, including Prince
Hassan, who gave an impressive speech on religious freedom at a conference
titled, “Religion and Rule of Law in the Near East.”
For me, the most enriching meeting we had was at a division of the University
of Jordan. We met with a group of about 70 women students at the Islamic
Cultural Center in Jubeiha. The young women — all in veils —
were clearly passionate about their faith and their studies.
There was no sense that they were oppressed in any way — they
certainly were not reserved in their questions. Much of the discussion
was about their impressions of the West and America in particular.
As I listened and responded, I could not help but recall the words of
Pope Benedict XVI in his outdoor Mass in Munich, Sept. 10, 2006: “People
in Africa and Asia admire, indeed, the scientific and technical prowess
of the West, but they are frightened by a form of rationality which
totally excludes God from man’s vision, as if this were the highest
form of reason, and one to be taught to their cultures too.”
It was clear from the women’s questions and comments that they
identified the various social issues in the West — homosexuality,
gay ‘marriage,’ pre- and extramarital sex — all as
great threats to their faith and culture.
Next week reflections on my visit to Egypt.
Father Gregory J. Fairbanks is the director of the Office for Ecumenical
and Interreligious Affairs of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. In June,
he becomes an official in the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian
Unity in Rome.