A Pakighinabi on intra-religious dialogue: Identity in sensibility
Since 2011, Al Qalam Institute of the Ateneo de Davao University has been working on interreligious dialogue (IRD) in various capacities. Based on Al Qalam’s experience, IRD has become an effective measure to counter religious militancy, a reality that has recently been affecting Mindanao even before the September 11 attack in the US.
IRD has been designed by Al Qalam to accommodate different religious groups from different ages, sectors, and ethnicity to increase levels of tolerance between participants of its trainings, peace camps, and workshops. The end goal is to foster empathy and help participants form a renewed understanding of each other.
Ateneo believes that as much as a dialogue between different religions is important, intra-religious and intra-faith dialogue should also be explored in order to address the prejudices present between varying schools of thought within a particular religion. In Islam, for example, contains many schools of thought or Madhabs, and there’s no one single or simple source of interpretation on disputed points. It is important for the leaders and scholars of these varying schools of Islamic thought to meet together in a dialogue that encourages a rootedness in compassion for others despite religious diversity.
With the present challenge brought by violent extremists within the Muslim communities, there is a growing need to provide opportunities for Filipino Muslim scholars to unite together in dialogue.
Because of this, Ateneo de Davao University in partnership with the Al Qalam Institute organized a Pakighinabi on Intrareligious Dialogue last August 30, 2017, at the Finster Auditorium, Ateneo Jacinto Campus, Davao City. The Pakighinabi Conversation Series is designed to provide members and partners of the University community a platform to discuss multidisciplinary issues and concerns in an open and friendly manner. For this Pakighinabi, Fr. Felix Kröner, SJ, a Jesuit professor of Catholic Theology and Islamic Studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, was invited to be the lead discussant for the event.
Fr. Kröner said in his opening message, “Some of my Muslim friends, in my home country, but also elsewhere, in Indonesia, Syria, and Turkey, for example, have shared their pain with me about Islam’s lack of inner unity.” This is very true. We can see that most of the victims of the violent extremists are actually Muslims. In fact, in the recent incident in the Malawi Siege, hundreds of thousands of Muslims were displaced because of the ISIS inspired group called Maute.
He added, “as a German, and as a Christian, I am also looking back to a history of religious divisions. In Europe, processes of reconciliation have become fruitful in the last years. Coming from there, I have prepared ten theses”. Out of the ten theses that he shared with us, what captured my attention the most was the topic on “identity in sensibility”. Fr. Kröner’s thesis was: “Believers will not be attracted by simplistic offers of self-definition or selfdemarcation, if they come to sense their identity in learning, praying and serving.”
Three very important processes that he raised with regard to experiencing religious identity: learning, praying and serving. For him, real religious identity lives without a self-definition. It requires patience and sensibility because one cannot put it in words: identity needs to be experienced.
Religious markers like texts, signs, vestments, rituals, and prohibitions, can help us in living ones’ particular religious identity, but he was quick to add, “but those exterior markers must not come from my individual decision and must not lead to my self-distinction over against other believers, whom I want to consider as less pious than myself. We cannot use such markers as if they were an identity technology, a tool against the culture we reject.” This is true with what is happening in Islam today. Religious markers like wearing a hijab or a niqab for women, having a goatee for men, and the teachings that are happening within the Madrasah today, are all focus on defining what “Muslimness” is all about. But in reality, they are not actually defining what ought to be a Muslim, but what a Muslim Arab or a Pakistani is actually looked like.
Moreover, many young Muslims nowadays rely on Google in terms of defining their Muslim identity. Because of the internet, we now have Google sheiks and imam who thinks religious identity symbols are defined by simple formula boxed by, what Fr. Kröner calls as “modern standards of visibility, performance, and success”. On the other hand, ISIS and the violent extremist groups have defined a cyber Muslim identity that contradicts the principle of diversity of humankind as defined in the Holy Quran in Chapter Hujurat 49:13.
Religious traditions are vital in our process of experiencing our religious identity. These traditions are our spiritual connection with Allah (SWT). Therefore, it is through intra-religious and intra-faith dialogue where we can allow these connections flourish within our communities and address violent extremism within Islam today.
In response to Fr. Kröner's discussion, I discussed briefly the panditas. The panditas are our indigenous religious leaders that follows Sunni Shafii Madhab.I shared in the discussion that in our local context, the panditas are important religious markers and gatekeepers of our Islamic traditions. Panditas (men) and walians (women) are part of our Muslim identity. They are connected to our life cycle rituals. For several years now, Al Qalam Institute is working to establish a school of living traditions for our panditas and walians.
As I write this piece, I remembered an African proverb that says, “if a child is not initiated into the village, he/she will burn it down just to feel its warmth”. We are slowly losing our connection to our panditas. Our Muslim youth today gets their religious traditions from other forms available to them, and ISIS and groups like them are quick to provide easy solutions. Our panditas must be given a safe space in the national discussion of intrareligious dialogue within Islam for us to regain back and experience our Muslim identity.