Our solitary boast

“The iconic spiritual leaders of our time took decades of struggle and growth before they were formed into the universally recognized symbols that we know and love”, writes Ambassador Akbar Ahmed. He chairs Islamic Studies at American University in Washington DC.  “Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela are universally recognized examples.”

But “Pope Francis is an exception,” he adds. “He comes to us, as it were, fully formed. In terms of his tenure as pope, he is in his infancy. And yet Francis seems to have hit his stride” This marked in his reaching out to Muslims—and the shared reverence for Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

From his first foreign policy address, in March. Francis made improving Muslim-Catholic relations a top priority.  Before ambassadors from 180 countries, he explained how he wanted to work for Muslims and Catholics to intensify dialogue.

In September, he wrote to Ahmed al-Tayyeb, the top imam of the University of Al-Azhar, founded a thousand years ago.  He expressed “esteem and respect for Islam and Muslims” and hoped that his effort could improve “understanding among Christians and Muslims in the world, to build peace and justice.”

“Positive shockwaves were sent into Muslim-Catholic circles,” Ambassador Ahmed added. “Muslim scholars and religious institutions around the world welcomed Pope Francis’s election and his initiatives.”

“In today’s charged atmosphere of tension between Muslims and non-Muslims, isn’t it prudent, let alone essential, to attempt to find common ground between these clashing Abrahamic traditions?” asks Heather Abraham who wrote the book:  “The Muslim Jesus (2001).

There are many theological differences between Christianity and Islam, Mary’s shared importance, in both religions, can be understood as an opportunity for interfaith dialogue. 

Jesus has a unique place in the Quran, the holy book of Islam. There is an entire chapter dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Muslim poets Rumi and Hafiz wrote: “I am a hole in a flute through which blows the breath of Christ.  Listen to this music.”

This respect for the Nazarene and his Mother caught attention of many scholars. “Islam is the only great post-Christian religion of the world, having had its origin in the 7^th century under Mohammed,” the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen wrote:

“The Qu'ran has many passages concerning the Blessed Virgin. The Qu'ran believes in her Immaculate Conception, and Virgin Birth. Its third chapter places Mary's family in a genealogy which goes back through Abraham, Noah, and Adam.”

The Qu'ran passes over Joseph in the life of Mary, But the Muslim tradition knows his name and in this tradition, Joseph is made to speak to Mary, who is a virgin. As he inquired how she conceived Jesus without a father, Mary answered: “Do you not know that God, when he created the wheat had no need of seed?  And that God by his power made the trees grow without the help of rain? All that God had to do was to say, 'So be it, and it was done.'

The Qu'ran has verses on the Annunciation, Visitation, and Nativity. Angels are pictured as accompanying the Blessed Mother and saying: "Oh, Mary, God has chosen you and purified you, and elected you above all the women of the earth." In the 19^th chapter of the Qu'ran, there are 41 verses on Jesus and Mary.

Mary, then, is for the Muslims the true Sayyida, or Lady. The only possible serious rival to her in their creed would be Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed himself. But after the death of Fatima, Mohammed wrote: "Thou shalt be the most blessed of all women in Paradise, after Mary." In a variation of the text, Fatima is made to say, "I surpass all the women, except Mary."

Yet, there has been conflict. Muslims armies were stopped, at one point outside the gates of Vienna. The Church throughout northern Africa was practically destroyed by Muslim power, and at the present hour, the Muslims are beginning to rise again.

The author Hilarie Belloc once said: Islam is a heresy. Then “it is the only heresy that has never decline,” Sheen says. Others have had a moment of vigor, then gone into doctrinal decay at the death of the leader, and finally evaporated in a vague social movement.  Islam, on the contrary, has only had its first phase. There was never a time in which it declined, either in numbers, or in the devotion of its followers.

The missionary effort of the Church toward this group has been, at least on the surface, a failure. At the present time, the hatred of the Muslim countries against the West is becoming a hatred against Christianity itself.

A summoning of the Muslims to joint veneration of the Mother of God is promising, Sheen adds. Missionaries in the future will, see that their apostolate will be successful in the measure that they show. Mary as the advent of Christ, bringing Christ to the people before Christ himself is born. In this endeavour, it is always best to start with that which people already accept.

Many great missionaries in Africa have broken down the bitter hatred Muslims against the Christians through their acts of charity, their schools and hospitals. It now remains to use another approach, namely, that of taking the 41st chapter of the Quran and showing them that it was taken out of the Gospel of Luke,

She remains “our tainted nature’s solitary boast.”