Tomorrow Farida and I are leaving for Italy, so you won't see much from us for the next three weeks (though we may post intermittently).
This morning, a disturbing email was forwarded to me by a friend of mine. It was a loud denunciation of Islam as "Islam is archaic, hateful, anti-Christian, anti-liberal democracy, and anti-Western Civilization from beginning to end." It was basically a four page rant on the topic of Islam and Christianity and it ended with the statment: "Either our leaders wake up to this reality very soon or we'll all soon be wailing away in Mosques in downtown Washington and Philadelphia wrapped up like mummies, tripping over our beards, and shouting "Ali Ahkbar!" as airplanes fall out of the skies all around." It reminded me of something that happened to me about 6 years ago when I was a student working in the computer center at the Catholic University of America. An Islamic student came in with a Macintosh 520 laptop with a Turkish (IIRC) OS and an Arabic language pack. The two were not playing well together. After a lot of effort, I was able to fix the problem. The student, who was studying Byzantine history at CUA, invited me to breakfast at his apartment in Pentagon City. I accepted.
The breakfast was a traditional affair. All the furniture had been cleared from the center of the room, and we ate sitting on the floor. There were about a dozen people there, almost all Moslems. Some were embassy workers, others were students at CUA and various universities. My host and I spent much of the time discussing Muslim and Catholic theology. He explained that Moslems have a great devotion for Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed, and that there is a tradition that the blessing of the Prophet flow to the faithful through her. We compared this to the Catholic belief that grace comes to Catholics through Mary, the mother of God. He also beleived that this devotion to Fatima might be the kernel around which a deeper understanding of the role of women in Islamic society might be built. At the end of dinner, we made an interesting exchange of gifts. I gave him my roasary, and he gave me a set of Moslem prayer beads. Since then, I have always thought that some day Islam and Catholicism could come to a greater understanding of each other.
Also of interest, today I found this link to Our Lady and Islam, which talks about this topic.
This morning, a disturbing email was forwarded to me by a friend of mine. It was a loud denunciation of Islam as "Islam is archaic, hateful, anti-Christian, anti-liberal democracy, and anti-Western Civilization from beginning to end." It was basically a four page rant on the topic of Islam and Christianity and it ended with the statment: "Either our leaders wake up to this reality very soon or we'll all soon be wailing away in Mosques in downtown Washington and Philadelphia wrapped up like mummies, tripping over our beards, and shouting "Ali Ahkbar!" as airplanes fall out of the skies all around." It reminded me of something that happened to me about 6 years ago when I was a student working in the computer center at the Catholic University of America. An Islamic student came in with a Macintosh 520 laptop with a Turkish (IIRC) OS and an Arabic language pack. The two were not playing well together. After a lot of effort, I was able to fix the problem. The student, who was studying Byzantine history at CUA, invited me to breakfast at his apartment in Pentagon City. I accepted.
The breakfast was a traditional affair. All the furniture had been cleared from the center of the room, and we ate sitting on the floor. There were about a dozen people there, almost all Moslems. Some were embassy workers, others were students at CUA and various universities. My host and I spent much of the time discussing Muslim and Catholic theology. He explained that Moslems have a great devotion for Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed, and that there is a tradition that the blessing of the Prophet flow to the faithful through her. We compared this to the Catholic belief that grace comes to Catholics through Mary, the mother of God. He also beleived that this devotion to Fatima might be the kernel around which a deeper understanding of the role of women in Islamic society might be built. At the end of dinner, we made an interesting exchange of gifts. I gave him my roasary, and he gave me a set of Moslem prayer beads. Since then, I have always thought that some day Islam and Catholicism could come to a greater understanding of each other.
Also of interest, today I found this link to Our Lady and Islam, which talks about this topic.
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