Date : May 18, 2003

By : Dr. Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad

Place : Institute for Interreligious Dialo

The Fourth Monthly Scientific Meeting of the IID

The fourth session of the series of monthly scientific lectures was held at the venue of the Institute for Interreligious Dialogue (IID). The speaker of the session was Dr. Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad who delivered lecture on " Methods of Dialogue between Islam and Christianity".
According to the reporter of the Club of Young Correspondents, in this meeting which was held on, May 2003, Dr. Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad said, "what is termed as dialogue in modern literature, has in fact been dispute, debate, annunciation and sermons and not dialogue. But the events that occurred in history and after the second world war made Christians and followers of other religions adopt the other methods, since the religious thinkers and speakers felt they must rethink over their relationship with other religions and leave conflicts and do not insist on propagating their religions, but to innovate a method in which the followers of religions could speak in equal scale. It was here that the subject of dialogue came into light. Dialogue in order to help the followers of the two religions reach realization and recognition and understand the reality. He added, "To reach this goal, this question is raised how should this dialogue be conducted and what is its practical way?' He reiterated," Radhakrishna in his book says, " Studying on other religions make the believers closer together and help understand the ideas of others; the mistakes resulting from misunderstanding could be removed and through what others clarify in their own religion, we may confirm our beliefs".
Referring this point that we have to use the experiences of those who have paved this way and succeeded, he mentioned Mont Gomery Wat , Christian Islamologist and John Hige , as two individuals that as a result of exterior dialogues and also interior dialogues with Islam could make a change in their belief system and he added, " If we, the Muslims also could select this method, we can make a great change in our relations with other religions." Dr. Mohaghegh continued, "John Hick asked himself, Do we know the Christian way as the only way such that we know salvation to be only possible in that way or are we supposed to include the human great religions as other ways of life and salvation?".
This question displaying the issue of encircling thinking or denial of others in Christianity and other religions. Because each of the religions have considered itself and its religion as the real and right one and other religions as null and abolished". He reiterated, " In order to prevent this issue, when individuals intend to hold dialogue, they have to prepare for this contingency that the salvation may be sought in other ways. Otherwise , if they arrive at the issue with a prejudiced attitude, either they must be notified , moralized or quarrelsome.
Referring to Qazali , a Muslim scientist who used to state ten centuries ago that any body with any religion thinks the way of saving is in his/her religion, but shouldn't he think that possibly the saving could be sought in other religion? , Dr. Mohaghegh said, " If I as a Muslim think that the way of saving is in being Muslim, then a Christian and Buddhist has the same thought with regard to the right of his religion".
While pointing to the book entitled, " Encounter of Islam and Christianity" by John Hige , he said, " In this book, the historical relations of early days of Islam up to present time has been stated and it shows that the former relations have been more hostile. " Dr. Damad said, " We have two hostile relationship. One is the conscious hostile relation and the other is the lack of companionship that makes lack of mutual understanding".
He said, ' Montgomery Watt put, " Followers of Christianity should respect other religions and leave their traditional belief on claiming they are the superior nation. Watt used to say that despite the fact that I am a Christian and faithful , I accept Islam and Muhammad(A.S.) as the Prophet of God."
Way Nick enumerated fundamentalism and strict following of basic teachings as the obstacles in the way of establishing dialogue on the side of Muslims and said,"the spirit of following basic teachings in strict ways give priority to the pure traditionalism and calls any act or thought against the method of Prophet's companion as a novelty".
Referring to the issue of the trinity , he said, " In the Qoran it is said that the Christian know Jesus Christ as the son of God and this question is put today that if the Christianity used to think in this way , do they think the same today?, He added, " The Christians believe that the relation of God with humans is the relation of a father's affection and not the affection of slave and master. And another point is the understanding of the word of " Word of God" . In the Qoran we call Jesus as Word of God and if we intend to compare, we have to compare Jesus with the Qoran , because both are Words of God , book and body.
Then, Dr. Mohaghegh Damad concluded his words and said, " We live at a period of history that has reached to a point of historical crises in which the emerging forces of the society are to the extent strong that can annihilate the human society . The followers of divine religions should hold dialogue to solve this problem and dialogue is a necessity. Dialogue is not merely exchange of ideas and peaceful coexistence but it means to grow together, growth of cultures and civilizations. The third point is that in Dialogue, one side must not intend to impose his/her identity on the other side . But efforts should be made to understand the other side. The other point is that Muslims and Christians can talk and interact on new subjects that form the issues of today's world instead of abstract discourse debates or recalling the hostile memories of the past.
Then he enumerated subjects of environment, family institution, human rights in the modern world as good subjects for dialogue among the Muslims.
Continuing of the session, Dr. Govahis named Anne Mari Schimmel as one of the figures that in her works there appears Islamic taste and more neutrality; and in reply , Dr. Mohaghegh Damand said, " Mrs. Schimmel used to pay attention to Islamic mysticism and a mystic is afollower of compromise, whereas John Hick and Watt has never paid attention to Islamic mysticism . The meeting was ended with some more question and answers.