Rising tension between Christians and Muslims in the Arab world have come out in the open with the expulsion of foreign Christian charity workers from Jordan and the conviction of a Catholic priest in Algeria. Although the cases seem different, the background is similar. Evangelical Christians have been increasingly active in the Islamic world, doing charity and development work and also seeking to convert Muslims. The missionary part is usually a crime in Islamic countries and local authorities — rightly or wrongly — often suspect the charity part is a cover for this proselytism. This sets the stage for clashes over religious freedom, national laws, Christianity, Islam and modernity — an increasingly frequent mix in a globalised world. It also has serious effects on the long-established but fragile Christian communities living in those Muslim countries.

In Jordan, Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said this week that Christians had come to Jordan under the “pretext of charitable and voluntary activities, but they had violated the law by undertaking preaching activities and were expelled”. This followed a long report by Compass Direct News, an agency that focuses on persecution of Christians around the world, that Jordan had “deported or refused residence permits to at least 27 expatriate Christian families and individuals in 2007, a number of them working with local churches or studying at a Christian seminary“.

One report said those involved were from the United States, South Korea, Egypt, Sudan and Iraq. “It is puzzling that certain small groups with a few hundred members and which are foreign to Christians in Jordan and to the history of Muslim-Christian relations, permit themselves to speak in the name of Christians and act as protectors of Christianity as if it were in danger,” it quoted the Council of Churches, the highest Christian body in Jordan, as saying. AsiaNews says: “According to the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan, the group of eight missionaries was distributing Christian material among the Bedouins to the north and east of the capital Amman.”

The Catholic Archbishop of Algiers Henri Teissier told William Maclean, our chief correspondent for North Africa, that increased activity by evangelical Christians in Algeria had caused problems for Catholics. “For the last two years, we have serious difficulties made for us by the Algerian administration every two or three months,” he said this week. “I think it’s due to the fight against the proselytising by evangelical groups … We are not responsible for this evangelism. But the administration continues to take measures against us … (Evangelicals) have arrived in Africa. And the first to have suffered from the actions of these groups are Catholics.”

Teissier was commenting on the case of French priest Pierre Wallez, who was given a suspended one year prison sentence last month for praying with Christians in western Algeria in a place not authorised for religious worship. The Christians were illegal migrants from Cameroon based on the border with Morocco, part of a shifting community of mostly Ghanaian, Nigerian and Cameroonian migrants who have been visited by Roman Catholics priests in the area for years.

Wallez was convicted under a two-year-old law that limits non-Muslim worship to specific buildings approved by the state. The law, which also forbids proselytism, was prompted by what officials have described as an increase in the activities of Christian evangelical groups. Complaints by government officials about the alleged conversion efforts have reached a crescendo in recent weeks.

Algerian observers say conversion among Muslims there is a marginal activity rooted in a mistaken belief among some Algerians that Western countries will more readily issue them visas if they have converted to Christianity.

These tensions have arisen before in different countries around the Muslim world and they’re sure to come up again. Do you think it’s right for Christians to go and break laws in Islamic countries to convert Muslims? Or is the question whether Islamic countries should have laws against conversion and missionary work in the first place?

Preparations are under way for a planned visit to the Vatican by representatives of the “Common Word” Muslim appeal for a theological dialogue between Christianity and Islam. This group of Muslim scholars and leaders got to be known as the “138″ because that was the number of initial signatories, but the total has grown to 221, so that label is a bit confusing now. Anyway, veteran vaticanista Sandro Magister informs us that five Muslim representatives were at the Vatican early this week to start preparing for the visit expected to take place in the next month or so. One interesting aspect is simply the geographical mix of people involved — they come from Turkey, Britain, Jordan, Libya and Italy.

Discussion of this initiative continues apace.

The conservative U.S. Catholic author George Weigel argues that the”Common Word” authors “seemed to be trying to change the subject ” in their statements about the planned dialogue because they did not address what Pope Benedict cited as discussion points when he addressed the Roman Curia in December 2006. In that speech, Benedict said Muslims and Christians had to “counter a dictatorship of positivist reason that excludes God from the life of the community and from public organizations” and “welcome the true conquests of the Enlightenment, human rights and especially the freedom of faith and its practice, and recognise these also as being essential elements for the authenticity of religion.”

In his weekly column, the National Catholic Reporter’s Vatican expert, John Allen, has a long interview with Father Thomas Michel S.J., one of the Catholic Church’s leading experts on Islam. Allen notes two interesting points Michel makes:

• Michel said: “It’s about time that somebody moved the conversation off geopolitical conflicts and onto faith questions.” Although some Vatican officials have argued that inter-religious dialogue ought to be seen as part of a broader dialogue among cultures, Michel said he doesn’t share that view. “Religion is already too often relegated to the status of folklore, of being a mere artifact of culture,” he said. “Muslims are making us all aware that if we’re not talking directly about God and religion, we’re not accomplishing anything.”

• I asked Michel to comment on one issue certain to surface in any Muslim-Christian conversation: “reciprocity,” or the insistence that if Muslim immigrants in the West receive the benefit of religious freedom and protection of law, Christian minorities in the world’s 56 Muslim-majority states ought to get the same deal. “We have to be careful,” Michel said. “Reciprocity is not a gospel value, but something that comes out of diplomatic and trade negotiations.” It was entirely appropriate, Michel said, to insist that Muslims treated minorities fairly. On the other hand, he said, respect for human dignity could not become a bargaining chip.

Sohail Nakhooda, editor-in-chief of Islamica magazine, kept the focus on what Muslims and Christians have in common. He made two interesting points about that in an interview for the Venice-based journal Oasis :

• “The document definitely caught people by surprise, particularly the naysayers in both religions who prefer to keep complete theological distance to legitimise their polemics … the document generated dialogue within and between communities. Its aim is not to whittle away differences in doctrine or, say, soteriology, but it is more about a recognition that we need to retrieve and learn to appreciate shared history and shared theological principles.

• “What is innovative and seminal about ‘A Common Word’ is that it starts from unity and moves to difference, rather than from difference to unity. It began with unity, that is, with what both communities shared deeply. That unity, or sharedness, was to be the basis for difference. This is an altogether different way of approaching the problem of intercultural relations and of plurality; it preserves their religious and cultural identities; it enables each to come together on solid theological grounds whose basis are in their own scriptures and which both share. They may disagree, and naturally they will, but when dialogue is based on the dual principles of love of God and of neighbour, it will ensure that they always leave as friends and that their disagreement does not escalate into all-out conflict.”

It’s interesting to see some people such as Weigel pointing to a large gap between Christianity and Islam and others like Nakhooda stressing what links them. Which approach do you think is more realistic or has more chance of fostering understanding?

Anyone looking at Turkish newspapers or television these days would be forgiven for thinking Turkey was in a deep political crisis over government plans to lift a decades-old ban on female students wearing the Muslim headscarf in universities. The two sides — the secular Turks who long held sway here and the newly empowered pious Turks — are debating the issue in the winner-take-all way Turks like to talk politics. The liberal daily Radikal found the tension rising so much that it ran a front page headline this week reading “Republic of Fear” with a reprint of Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream” on the cover.

Readers abroad might ask what all the fuss is about. After all, Turkey is a predominantly Muslim country with a vibrant democracy. But the headscarf goes to the very heart of Turkey’s complex identity. For a feature on the headscarf issue, I spoke to devout and secular women and heard two diametrically opposed views. The devout women, some of whom had been expelled from universities because of the headscarf, said covering their hair was all about personal and religious freedoms. “I wear the headscarf, my cousin doesn’t and we go out to family dinners. It is no big deal,” one said. Many secular women feel their rights will be curtailed if the ban is lifted since — they fear — they will eventually be forced to wear the Islamic headscarf.

Male opinion can be just as split. Secular men say that easing the ban on wearing the headscarf in universities would weaken the current separation of state and religion. The pious Muslims — including Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan — say wearing the headscarf is a personal freedom and a right, just like secular women have the right not to wear it.

The two sides are no closer than they were in the 1980s when restrictions were tightened. The army is still against the headscarf. But many Turks do feel the headscarf should be permitted for university students. Thousands of students have decided not to attend university because of the ban or have defied the ban and been expelled. Many others have gone to study abroad.

But Turkey is a constantly evolving country. The once-mighty secularist elite, which includes the armed forces, no longer dominates the media and public life. Headscarves have become more common even in the big cities, where young women sport a wide variety of fashionable colours and patterns and match them with their other clothing. In shopping malls or at Starbucks, women with and without headscarves mix easily — they don’t seem to see any problem. So the more vocal, observant Muslim middle class that helped to clinch a second four-year term for the ruling religiously oriented AK Party last July now wants to see a change in the law.

Who’s right? No one really knows. In the meantime , though, each side is accusing the other of stirring tensions and hatred. It makes for a constant buzz whenever Turks get together. Today, some workers came around to my flat to fix the cable TV connection and our short chat quickly turned to politics. Like everyone else in this debate, they let me know loud and clear where they stood. They were convinced Turkey would soon become an Islamic republic if the ban was lifted.

The Roman Catholic Church statement about evangelisation last Friday was one of those classic Vatican documents that are short on news but long on content. We covered it in a news story from Vatican City, but it was not top news that day (”Christians should spread the faith” is not exactly a new message). The document also avoided the blunt tone that sometimes comes out of the Vatican — an angle journalists were watching out for — and dealt with a sensitive issue “softly, softly,” as one theologian put it.

The impact of this document should unfold slowly in the context of the Vatican’s relations with Orthodox churches and with Muslims. It proclaims a duty to spread the Gospel without respect to geographical boundaries. That sounds like a rebuff to the Russian Orthodox argument that Rome should not seek or accept converts in traditionally Orthodox countries. It’s also a challenge to Muslim countries that forbid conversion, to the point of declaring apostasy — i.e. leaving Islam — a crime worthy of the death penalty. Since the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) says it issued the text because of “a certain confusion about whether Catholics should give testimony about their faith in Christ,” this document amounts to a practical guide for dealing with these situations. That’s not news now, but it can well become news at some point ahead if this leads to tensions.

Relations with the Russian Orthodox are sensitive and difficult to read. Metropolitan Kirill, the “foreign minister” of the Russian Church, met Pope Benedict on December 7 and said the session was proof of improving ties. A quick look at the Interfax Religion service seems to hint at a more critical view in Moscow. Kirill seems to take a tougher line back home. The Moscow Patriarchate is also concerned that Opus Dei, which just opened an office in the Russian capital, might proselytise in Russia.

Another question is whether this means the Catholic Church will become more active in its missionary work. The Church is already facing competition from evangelical and Pentecostal missionaries who are winning converts in developing countries, especially in traditionally Catholic countries in Latin America. In Muslim countries like Iraq , it says assertive evangelical missionaries arriving in recent years have upset a long-standing balance the Christian minority had found with the majority population.

Do you think the Catholic Church is right to claim a right and duty to convert people everywhere? Will it become more assertive about it now?

Six international human rights groups have appealed to the U.N. Human Rights Council to press Pakistan to release Asma Jahangir, the world body’s special rapporteur on the freedom of religion or belief. The Pakistani lawyer, a leading human rights campaigner in her country, was put under house arrest in Lahore when President General Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency on November 3.

The six groups — Amnesty International, The International Federation for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, International Service for Human Rights, World Organisation against Torture and Pax Romana — also said Pakistan should lift a threat of detention against Hina Jilani , the U.N. special representative on the situation of human rights defenders who is currently outside of her native Pakistan but would be arrested if she returned. Jahangir and Jilani are sisters who have been active campaigners for women’s rights in Pakistan.

A group representing all 38 UN special representatives and working groups on human rights also protested against emergency rule in Pakistan and singled out the arrest of their colleague Jahangir and the detention order against Jilani. “We are concerned that placing a Special Procedures mandate holder under house arrest may adversely impact on his or her ability to carry out the activities necessary to fulfill the mandate. We are alarmed that a detention order remains in place against Hina Jilani, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights defenders,” they said.

Pakistani blogs have posted an email they said was from Jahangir including a copy of her detention order which put her under house arrest by declaring her home a “sub-jail” for 90 days.

Jahangir, who also heads the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, has been the U.N. watchdog on freedom of religion since 2004. She visits several countries a year to monitor religious rights there and produces country reports and an annual report for the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

In an interim report for the Security Council in August, she said she was preparing country reports after visits to Tajikistan and Britain. She also has invitations to visit Angola, India, Israel, Turkmenistan, Mauritania and Serbia to monitor religious freedoms there. In addition, she said she had started special studies on two issue of particular concern — the religious rights of refugees and the situation of people with atheistic or non-theistic beliefs.

The letter by the six human rights organisations reads:

Ambassador Doru Costea
President
Human Rights Council
Geneva
Geneva, 7 November 2007
Dear Ambassador Costea

We are writing to seek your urgent intervention as President of the Human Rights Council, and that of the Bureau of the Council, concerning two of the Council’s Special Procedures, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Asma Jahangir, and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Human Rights Defenders, Hina Jilani.

On 3 November 2007, the President of Pakistan, General Musharraf, declared a state of emergency that has led to the detention of hundreds of human rights defenders, contrary to Pakistan’s international human rights obligations. We have been informed that Ms Jahangir, the Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, was placed under house arrest over the last weekend, subject to a 90 day order. This action effectively prevents her from discharging her responsibilities as a mandate holder of the Council.

We are concerned that Ms Jilani, the Special Representative on the situation of Human Rights Defenders, who is presently outside Pakistan, faces house arrest under a similar order when she returns to Pakistan. This threat is subjecting Ms Jilani to pressure that in itself affects the discharge of her responsibilities. If she returns to be placed under house arrest, she too will be entirely prevented from acting under her mandate.

Action restricting or preventing the Council’s mandate holders from discharging their responsibilities is intolerable under any circumstances. The fact that the action is being taken by a member of the Council makes the situation even more serious. General Assembly resolution 60/251 establishing the Council requires that “members elected to the Council shall uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights, (and) shall fully cooperate with the Council.”

We ask that the Bureau of the Council require Pakistan to account to the Council as a matter of urgency for its conduct in relation to the mandate holders in terms of its responsibility under the General Assembly resolution. Pakistan should be required to lift all restrictions on Ms Jahangir and Ms Jilani so that they are able to continue their work under their mandates from the Council without pressure, threat or interference.

We request an opportunity for representatives of our organisations in New York to discuss this situation with you personally and urgently. We ourselves will be seeking meetings with other members of the Bureau here in Geneva.

Yours sincerely,

Chris Sidoti for

Amnesty International, Irene Khan, Secretary General

Fédération Internationale des Droits de l’Homme, Souhayr Belhassen, President

Human Rights Watch, Ken Roth, Executive Director

International Service for Human Rights, Chris Sidoti, Director

Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture, Eric Sottas, Director

Pax Romana, Budi Tjahjono, Coordinator
cc Permanent Representatives, Human Rights Council Member States

Turkey has signalled it may soon amend a free speech law that has been a stumbling block in its drive to join the European Union. Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin said this on Tuesday soon after the European Commission issued its annual progress report on Ankara’s membership bid. The interesting angle here for this blog is that the EU criticism singled out not only the much-criticised law on “insulting Turkishness” but also current restrictions on freedom of religion.

Releasing the report, Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn noted democracy had prevailed over military meddling in Turkish politics this year. “The new momentum should now be used to relaunch the reforms to improve fundamental freedoms, particularly the freedom of expression and religious freedom, so that they prevail in all corners of the country and in all walks of life,” he said (my emphasis).

The report gave Turkey a mixed review concerning religion. “As concerns freedom of religion, freedom of worship continues to be generally guaranteed,” it wrote. But it added: “Overall, the environment as regards freedom of religion has not been conducive to the full respect of this right in practice. A legal framework has yet to be established in line with the European Convention on Human Rights so that all religious communities can function without undue constraints. No real progress can be reported on the major difficulties encountered by the Alevis and non-Muslim religious communities.”

The ex-Islamist AK Party governing Turkey has argued for more religious freedom in general, seeing this as a way for Muslims to have more rights in the country’s rigidly secularist system. AK leaders have said these freedoms should also apply to the non-Muslim minorities there. But it takes time to translate that into practice. Several European governments are paying particular attention to progress on the religious freedom front, so the pressure is on Ankara to introduce reforms.

Other points in the report include:

– “The Association for Support of Jehovah’s Witnesses has received a final decision from the Turkish authorities confirming that the association is legally registered.”

– “On 19 June, the Ministry of Interior issued a Circular on freedom of religion of non-Muslim Turkish citizens. The Circular acknowledges that there has been an increase in individual crimes against non-Muslim citizens and their places of worship. It requests the governors of all provinces to take the necessary measures to prevent such incidents from happening again and to enhance tolerance towards individuals with different religion and beliefs.”

– “Attacks against clergy and places of worship of non-Muslim communities have
been reported. Missionaries have been portrayed in the media or by the authorities as a threat to the integrity of the country and non-Muslim minorities as not being an integral part of Turkish society. To date, use of language that might incite hatred against non-Muslim minorities has been left unpunished.”

– “Non-Muslim religious communities - as organised structures of religious groups - continue to face problems such as lack of legal personality and restricted property rights. These communities have also encountered problems with the management of their foundations and ith recovering property by judicial means.”

– “Several churches ave not been able to register their places of worship. Alevis face difficulties with opening their places of worship (Cem houses or “Cemevi”). Cem houses are not recognised as places of worship and receive no funding from the authorities.

– The Halki (Heybeliada) Greek Orthodox seminary remains closed.”

– “The Ecumenical Patriarch is not free to use the ecclesiastical title Ecumenical on all
occasions. In June 2007, the Court of Cassation ruled on a case against the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate … This decision potentially creates further difficulties to the Patriarchate and to other non-Muslim religious communities in the exercise of their rights guaranteed under the European Convention of Human Rights.”

– “In December 2006, 122 foreign clergy were working in Turkey under the Bylaw on the Law on Work Permits for Foreigners. However, there are still cases reported of foreign clergy who wish to work in Turkey facing difficulties and whose right to equal treatment with Turkish nationals is not ensured.”

The cautious Vatican reaction to the dialogue appeal from 138 Muslim scholars has prompted one of the signatories to question whether the top Catholic official for relations with Muslims understands Islam. More specifically, Aref Ali Nayed has asked how Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran can say that a serious theological dialogue with Muslims is not possible because they will not discuss the Koran in depth. This debate (discussed in an earlier post here) is dense and highly specialised. But it may be at this level that this unprecedented dialogue could take off or fail to ignite.

Nayed, a former professor at the Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI) in Rome and main spokesman for the 138 scholars, flatly refutes Tauran’s view. He says Muslims have always interpreted the Koran and studied it both historically and linguistically. Their methods were even the forerunners of the “historical-critical” method that Christians use with the Bible, he says. Protestants began applying this “higher criticism” to the Bible in the 18th century and Catholics accepted it only in 1943, making them latecomers to this exercise in Nayed’s view. I am no specialist on these details and will need to hear reactions from Christian theologians.

Readers interested in Nayed’s argument can read it on the website of Islamica magazine or read Cindy Wooden’s story for the Catholic News Service on it. I’ll just quote the crisp conclusion:

“Unfortunately, Cardinal Tauran’s statement turns out to be based on ill-founded ‘Islam versus Christianity’ ‘contrast tables’ developed and advocated by some ‘Islam experts’. Rather than unilaterally declaring the impossibility of theological dialogue with Muslims, Cardinal Tauran would have been wiser to ask Muslim scholars themselves as to what kind of dialogue they feel is possible, from their point of view. To unilaterally pre-determine what is possible and not possible for the other, on behalf of the other, is one sure way of achieving closure in matters dialogical.”

Until we get the Vatican’s official reaction to the Muslim scholars’ letter, we won’t know exactly how it plans to answer this criticism. But comments made by Pope Benedict before and after his election in 2005 strongly hint he has a well-developed view of the difficulty of holding a theological dialogue with Muslims. Fr. Samir Khalil Samir S.J., an Egyptian-born Catholic expert on both faiths who welcomed the dialogue appeal despite some reservations, published this long and detailed analysis of the Pope’s views on Islam in Asianews.it in April 2006.

Joseph Ratzinger is an old-school German professor and they don’t give in lightly. He was so opposed to blurring the differences between faiths that he criticised Pope John Paul’s spectacular Assisi inter-faith summit in 1986. But Pope Benedict found a way to pray with Mustafa Cagrici, the mufti of Istanbul, in the Blue Mosque last year. Are we hearing echoes of Goethe’s Faust (Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust — Two souls dwell, alas! in my breast) or should we look to another poet to explain this?

While we’re on the subject, Benedict and Saudi King Abdullah will meet at the Vatican next Tuesday for the first talks between the head of the Catholic Church and the monarch who is custodian of Islam’s holiest site of Mecca and ruler of a kingdom that follows the strict Wahhabi school of Islam. Benedict has frequently noted the lack of religious reciprocity in some Muslim countries that bar the construction of Christian churches even though Western countries allow mosques to be built on their territory. In Saudi Arabia, non-Muslims are not allowed to visit Mecca. Other religions cannot build houses of worship. Christians can’t even own a Bible. Abdullah’s visit will give Benedict the opportunity to repeat his complaint about the lack of religious freedom to the man whose country is regularly listed — as here by the U.S. State Department– as among the world’s worst offenders.

Tauran, by the way, is not the only one cautious about the Muslim scholars’ dialogue appeal. The British weekly The Spectator gave it a less-than-enthusiastic review.

The leading role monks played in the September protests against Myanmar’s military rulers has put the spotlight on the politically active side of Buddhism.

Next door in Thailand, this activism takes a quite different form. Buddhist groups there tried in vain earlier this year to have Buddhism declared the country’s official religion in its new post-coup constitution.

In April, they converged on parliament in Bangkok — some riding into the city on elephants — to highlight their demand.

Even though 95 percent of Thais are Buddhists, the drafting assembly rejected the idea.

In an unusual step, Queen Sirikit said in a speech marking her 75th birthday in August that religion should be separate from politics. Given the deep respect Thais have for their monarchy, that put an end to the campaign.

The drive to give Buddhism official status has come back in another guise. As the Bangkok Post reports, 179 members of the 250-seat National Legislative Assembly have backed a bill to make offences to Buddhism a crime punishable by stiff penalties. The report said:

The bill sets a jail term of 10-25 years and/or a fine of 500,000-1,000,000 baht for insulting, offending, imitating and distorting Buddhism and the Lord Buddha and a jail term of 5-10 years and/or a fine of 100,000-500,000 baht for damaging Buddhist objects, personnel and places.

People who have any form of sexual affair with monks, novices and nuns are liable to five to 10 years in jail and/or a fine of 100,000-500,000 baht.

However, the bill does not include any punishments for monks, novices and nuns who engage in sexual relations … Punishment for physically assaulting monks, novices and nuns would be three times those stipulated by law.

(100,000 baht = $3,180 )

The issue of blasphemy played a central role in the violent protests in Muslim countries last year against the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad.

Pakistan is regularly criticised by the United Nations and groups supporting religious freedom for its blasphemy law that critics say is used to oppress non-conformist Muslims (such as Ahmedis) and religious minorities such as Christians.

Does bringing in a blasphemy law to protect Buddhism sound like a good idea to you?