Interreligious Relation:

Abrahamic Faiths
(Judaism, Christianity and
Islam)

Abrahamic Faiths
Jerald F. Dicks (2006) digunakan utk
mengkelompokkan agm Yahudi, Kristian dan
Islam kerana ketiga-tiga agm tsbt bersusur
galur drpd keturunan yg sama.
Ia jg seiring dgn perkembangan Ilmu
Perbandingan Agama khususnya dlm topik
pengkategorian agama-agama dunia dalam
kelompok yg sama.
Agama monoteisme, agama semitik, agama
kenabian, agama Timur Tengah,

 Berkongsi konsep monoteisme namun

berbeza bersesuaian dgn falsafahdan
tuntutan agama masing-masing.
Persamaan monoteisme yg umumnya
menegaskan kepercayaan tuhan yg satu,
tuhan yg mencipta alam dan tuhan yg
mengutuskan nabi kpd umat manusia.
Semitik dinamakan oleh A.L Schoezler
thn 1781 bermakna bahasa, tatacara
hidup yg menjadi identiti kpd masy Shem.

 Perkataan Sem berasal drpd Shem yg

terdpt. Di dalam Bible da beliau
merupakan anak keturunan Nabi Noh
(Genesis 6:10).
Bahasa pertuturan bangsa Shem
merangkumi bahasa Arab, Aramaic,
Hebrew, Akkadian, Ethiopoc, Phoenician yg
kini dikenali sbg Afro-Asiastic dan dirujuk
sbg bhs Semitik.
Bhs pertuturan dan perantaraan
komunikasi kpd Yahudi, Kristian dan Islam.

 Perkataan
faiths
digunakan
berikutan
kerpecayaan dan keimanan Abraham terhadap
Tuhan yg satu dalam agama masing-masing.
Hal
ini
terbukti
apabila
setiap
agama
meletakkan status Nabi Ibrahim berbeza-beza
berdasarkan
kepercayaan
(faiths)
kepada
PenciptaNya.
Agama Yahudi meletakkan kedudukan Abraham
sbg. Father of Many Nation berikutan keimanan
dan kesabaran beliau menghadapi tekanan
ketiadaan zuriat dan Tuhan telah menjanjikan
beliau bapa yg mempunyai banyak keturunan
(Genesis 17:5)

 Agama Kristian
meletakkan kedudukan
Abraham sbg Father of Faiths yg dilihat
memberi suatu contoh teladan
ke atas
penyaliban Jesus di tiang salib berikutan
keimanan dan kesabaran beliau mengorbankn
anaknya, Isaac.
Agama Islam meletakkan Nabi Ibrahim sbg
Khalilullah
berikutan
perjalanan
dakwah
baginda yg mengharungi pelbagai rintangan
bagi menuju agama Hanif dgn tugas
dakwahnya
kpd
tiga
golongan
utama:
Penyembah berhala, penyembah bintang,
bulan dan matahari serta penyembah raja
(Raja Namrud)

 Istilah Abrahamic Faiths muncul seiring

kemunculan ilmu perbandingna agama
apabila berlakunya inter-faiths dialog di
antara ketiga-tiga agama besar dunia ini.
Pertemuan pd thn 1974 yg dinamakan The
Muslim-Jewish-Christian Conference (MJCC)
telah melahirkn istilah Abrahamic Faiths yg
berjuan menjadi suatu platfom kpd agama
Yahudi, Kristian dan Islam dalam memahami
komunikasi antara agama demi menjana
keharmonian dan toleransi.

 According to the history of the Abrahamic

religions, it is known that Judaism is the
oldest among Christianity and Islam.
The three religions base their foundations
on Abraham (a.s.) and take him as their
ancestor and progenitor.
They are all the scriptural religions, which
affirm the existence of the divine
revelation in written form. These
revelations represent Gods intervention
in history.

 History tells that Christianity, in its origin, is

deeply rooted in Judaism, and therefore, one
cannot understand it without a sincere feeling
for the Jewish world and a direct experience of it.
Christianity was born in the matrix of Judaism,
but Judaism, from the beginning of Christian
religions emergence until now, ignored this
daughter religion by following its majestic
course in lonely dignity.
In this sense, Judaism has always ignored
Christianity, and has never been affected by its
dogmatic teachings.

 Hence, it is maintained that the origin of

Judaism and Christianity are indisputably
intertwined.
In addition, both Jewish and Christian scholars
tended to assume that Judaism originated in
about the 5th century, shortly after the
Babylonian Exile, and that Christianity
developed out of this religion but soon became
dominated by Greek thoughts and norms.
Christianity claims both, continuity
Judaism as well as superiority over it.

with

 In the early days of the Church, Christianity

defined its relationship with the God of Israel
as replacing and superseding the old
covenant of God with the Israelites.
The church was the new Israel and the Bible
was a New Testament.
The Jews lost their birthright when they
rejected Jesus Christ as their Saviour. Thus,
the existence of Jews and Judaism became a
problem for Christianity.

 According to traditional Christian theology, it is the

Church rather than the Jewish community, which is
the true heir to Gods promises given to Abraham.
Thus, by rejecting Jesus Christ as a Saviour, the
Jews no longer constituted Gods chosen people
and, as a punishment for their hardheartedness,
Judaism, as a religion, was obliterated and became
dead, the Ancient Temple was destroyed and the
Jewish people were driven into exile.
After the rejection of Jesus as the Messiah
(Saviour), Jews faced many problems among
themselves as well as with the new Jewish sect
(Christianised Jews), which was

 formed by the followers of Jesus who claimed to be

the true Israel or the true followers of Jesus
Christ.
The new Jewish sect formed its Church, which was
then called the Nascent Christian Church.
This Church claimed that God had sent the Saviour
Jesus Christ to the Jews, and the majority of them
had erred by rejecting or ignoring him.
Therefore, the dominant view in the early Church
was that God had rejected the Jews as His people,
except for that small number who had accepted
Jesus as Lord and Saviour.

 Jews were charged with the rejection of

Christ as their Saviour as well as killing him,
and since Christ was God, they had killed
their God.
From a historical standpoint, the reason for
Jesus death was political rather than
theological. By looking at the messianic
movement of Jesus, the Romans and the
Saducees (the followers of the high-priestly family the son of
Zaddok. They controlled the Holy Temple and the cluster of central
institutions associated with it from the rebuilding of the Second
Temple),

were convinced that this movement

posed a danger to them, and therefore, they
plotted against Jesus and arrested him.

 Jesus was not brought before Pilate because

of his teachings, but because anyone
suspected of promoting the ancient Jewish
idea of the Messiah had to be stopped.
The Sadducees collaborated with the Roman
authorities in oderto stiop this messianic
movement. It is observed in John (18: 12-27)
that Jesus was arrested by the Roman soldiers
accompanied by the officers of the temple,
was brought to the residence of the highpriest for interrogation, and from there to the
praetorium for a hearing before Pilate.

 Paul Winter proposes that the following

sequence of events can be affirmed with
certainityL that Jesus was arrested by Roman
military (John 18:12) for political reasons (Mark
14:48) and then conducted to a local Jewish
administrative official (Mark 14:53a; Luke 22:54;
john 18:13a) during the same night.
The following morning, after a brief deliberation
by the Jewish authorities (Mark 15:1a; Luke 23:1;
John 18: 28a). The governor sentenced Jesus to
death by crucifixion (Mark 15:15b, 26), the
sentence being carried out in accordance with
Roman penal procedure (Mark 15: 15b).

 The earlier hostility against Jews was indeed

profoundly religious. This hostility was
concerned with the rejection by the Jews of the
Christian redeemer and his message, and was
documented in the Gospels (the Jewish role in
the life and death of Christ).
Religious anti-Semitism at the patristic and
medieval times the hostilities were not
generally not racial in nature but religious.
Some of the most intense Christian writers
against the Jews are Aphrahat, Ephraem,
Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Agustine of
Hippo in the 4th and 5th centuries.

 During the patristic era, the Church stopped being a

Jewish sect and it ceased practicing the Law or
observing Sabbath.
The separation of Church from Judaism, was not
peaceful, left many bitter feelings.
Christian anti-Jewish (anti-semitism) writings
emphasise that:
i) the Jews failed to recognize Jesus as their Messiah;
ii) they did that because they are stubborn and blind
that is, unable to discern the truth from their
Scriptures;

iii) therefore, they condemned and rejected by

God, Who has rejected their ritualistic practices;
iv) therefore, they have been replaced by the
Christian as the new people of God; and
v) as a result of the Jews blindness and inability
to understand the Scriptures, the Scriptures
belong the the Christians, who alone can
properly interpret them.
Another factor that was added to the religious
hostility between Christians and Jews was the
racial hostility or the so-called anti-Semitism.

 The notion of anti-Semitism (opposing Judaism

as a religion; opposing he Jewish people) first
appeared as a political program in Vienna.
In fact, the term was coined in the late 1870s
by the German publicist Wilhelm Marr.
The term anti-Semitism according to Marr,
regarded race rather than religion as the
decisive factor separating Jews from Germans.
For this reason, racist anti-Semitism is usually
distinguished from medieval Christian antiSemitism

and its antecedents in the patristic and New

Testament periods, in which the religious element
was paramount.
Marr rejected religious polemics and said that he
himself would defend the Jews against religious
persecution.
For him, the problem laid not in religions, but
embedded in the ultimate reality, which was race.
In addition, the term anti-Semitism also signifies
not opposition to Semites in general, but a hostile or
at least an unfriendly disposition on the part of
Aryans towards Jews, both, socially and commercially.

 In this sense, it seems very clear that the term

anti-Semitism was not related to the thological
polemics between Jews and Christians, i.e., in
Europe and especially in Germany, but to racial
differences.
The term anti-Semitism was rapidly adopted in all
European languages in which it signified the hatred
for Jews and systematic hostility towards them.
The term implies other concepts, common in 19 th
century modern Europe, that humanity is divided
into well-defined races to which people belong by
birth and that these races coincide to a large
extent with linguistic family.

 Consequently, the hatred towards Jews was

considered to be aroused by their supposedly
hereditary racial characteristics, which was
regarded as either detestable in reality or of
such a nature as to engender the hatred of
others.
The racial anti-Semitism squeezed the Jewish
people into a biological category.
In contrast to the medieval outlook that
anticipated Jewish recognition of Christ of
apocalyptic events, the modern anti-Semitism
provided no exits from the Jewish condition.

 The most important difference between

medieval religious anti-Judaism and modern
racists anti-Semitism was the possibility of
conversion.
Actually, until the 19th century, the Church
held out conversion to Jews as an option to
save their souls and lives.
However, this was done according to the
Christian belief that the Jews were the
rejected people by God, and therefore, they
have to acknowledge Jesus Christ as their
Saviour in order to attain salvation.

 Anti-Semitism seems to have emerged on a national

scale in the wake of the Nazi victory in Germany.
In the middle 1930s, hundreds of anti-Jewish
groups, openly racist and pro-Hitler, sprang out
throughout the country and launched well-financed
programs of incitement and rabble-rousing.
It is important to mention to mention that antiSemitism is not something that can be eliminated
through changes of culture, ideology or social
system. Rather, it is inherent in the Jewish
situation, that is, the projective reaction of the nonJew (pagan, Christian or post-Christian) to the
offence of Jewish existence.

 Anti-Semitism manifests itself in various forms

and levels; it expresses itself in terms of
economic, social, cultural, political or religious
conflict, or some combination of these.
Anti-Judaism is one of the roots of racist antiSemitism and hence, responsible for the death
of six million Jews as Zionists claimed ( some
scholars consider whole issue as a Zionist fabrication).

There is a great distinction between antiJudaism and anti-Semitism. The former is

concerned with the attitude of Christian
theology regarding the Jews. This is a religious
issue between Christianity and Judaism,

based on the Jewish rejection of Christ as a

Saviour. The latter is concerned with the
attitude of Nazi ideology of racism toward the
Jews.
It was the racial anti-Semitism that led to the
mass murders; the so-called Holocaust, and
not theological anti-Judaism.
The Jews were murdered for being who they
were, rather than for what they did.
The Jews were living in exile under the
Christian

oppression until the twentieth century, or

until Second Vatican Council took place.
The major conflicts between Judasim and
Christianity (anti-Judaism, anti-Semitism and
Holocaust), have led to a radical shirf in the
relationship to Judaism of educated Catholic
people as well as the Roman Catholic Church
in its official public teachings and policies.
This policy shift started with Pope Pius XI in
his classic sentence, We are all spiritual
Semites.

 Later on, Pope John XXIII convened the

Second Vatican Council, which marked an
important step in theological rapprochement
between the Church and the Jewish people.
Thus, this council revised and restated its
understanding of the Catholic Churchs
relation to Judaism, and in its Declaration on
the Relationship of the Church to nonChristian Religions renounced the once
widely held view that all Jews, or all Jews
contemporary with Jesus, should be held
responsible for his death.

Nostra Aetate, par. 4 states:

True, authorities of the Jews and those who
followed their lead, pressed for the death of
Christ still, what happened in his passion
cannot be blamed upon all the Jews then
living, without distinction, nor upon the Jews
of today
By the Jews, is not meant all the Jews,
not even all those of Jesus days or even in
Jerusalem, but principally the chief priests
and Pharisees, that is, to says the religious
authorities.

 NA stressed the positive bond (the common

spiritual heritage) between Jews and Christians
and called for special love of Christians for Jews.
This declaration recommended mutual
understanding and respect and a brotherly
dialogue. NA promotes inter-religious dialogue
between the followers of Christianity and
Judaism.

We conclude that the attempts of Catholic

Church for reconciliation with the Jews
came into reality only after the
formulation of the NA declaration.

 It was this declaration, which broke the

chains of a long conflicts (Anti-Judaism and
Anti-Semitism
elements)
that
existed
throughout the history and introduced a new
system of communication for discovering
ways to further the inter-religious dialogue.

Hubungan Muslim-Kristian

Goddard (2008) - berasaskan sumber sejarah dan tradisi ajaran agama Islam dan
Kristian. Berdasarkan model ini, hubungan Muslim-Kristian digambarkan bersifat
konfrantasi dan antagonis dan sejarah menunjukkan contoh yg begitu jelas iaitu,
Perang Salib penghujung abad ke-11(5H).

Hubungan Muslim-Kristian turut memaparkn hbgn toleransi dan kerjasama.

Misalnya, Rasulullah s.a.w bersikap toleransi thdp masy Kristian.

I. 615M nabi mengarahkan 83 sahabat berhijrah ke Abyssinia (Axum).

II. 628M berlaku di Madinah apabila Nabi memulakan hbgn diplomatik dgn
kerajaan Parsi dan beberapa pemerintah Kristian spt Byzantine, Abyssinia dan
Mesir.
III. 630M Nabi membuat perjanjian dgn pelbau kumpulan Kristan dan meminta
mrk membayar jizyah. Kaum Kristian Arab Nestorian (Selatan Arab) dan kaum
Lakhmid (utara Sjung Arab); Nestorian Parsi dan Iraq, Jacobites Syria dan Copts
(Koptik) Mesir.
IV. Surat dihantar kpd Raja Heraclius dan pemerintah Empayar Sassanian.

dicontohi para sahabat antaranya Khalifah Umar bin al-Khattab ketika menawan
Baitulmaqdis.

Mohd. Roslan Mohd. Nor (2010) menjelaskan:

Jaminan Keamanan Umar (al-Uhda alUmariyyah/Umar Assurance of Safety) telah
menyediakan peraturan asas utk membantu
pembangunan dan pembentukan semula
komuniti baru di Aelia yg menekankan polisi
Muslim yg praktikal thdp pengiktirafan kpd
pihak lain dgn menentukn hak-hak penduduk
Aelia dan tanggungjawab Muslim thdp mrk.
Ia memberi jaminan keamanan kpd setiap
penduduk Aelia, tanpa pengecualian dan
diskriminasi, termasuk menjamin penuh
keselamatan rumah ibadat, tidak ada paksaan
dalam beragama, dan tidak juga dianiaya.

 Contoh lain - pada zaman perkembangan

Islam di Andalus satu usaha penterjemahan
dijalankan
di
Cordoba
ketika
zaman
pemerintahan Sultan Abd al-Rahman III.
Fauzinaim (2005) menjelaskan fakta ini
menunjukkan masyarakat Islam dahulu amat
memahami keperluan utk duduk bersama
dan bekerjasama dengan pihak lain dari
kalangan non-Muslim.

 Peranan penubuhan Secretariat for Non-Christians

(SNC) pada tahun 1964 yg diilhamkan oleh Pope
Paul VI signifikan dalam menjelaskan dialog
Muslim-Kristian.
Pertubuhan ini bertujuan mempromosi jalinan
dialog (dialogical relations) melalui penglibatan
bersama Muslim dalam aktiviti keIslaman spt.
sambutan Ramadan dan Id al-fitr serta aktiviti
pertukaran lawatan, mesyuarat dan seminar.
Di bawah kepimpinan Pope Karol Wyotyla yg
membawa gelaran John Paul II, beliau menekankan
tema dialog yg berasaskan ikatan spiritual bagi
memupuk kerjasama Muslim-Kristian.

 Dalam
manifesto
kepaderian
Redemptor
hominis yg dilancarkn pd tahun 1979, John Paul
II menyeru agar kedua-dua umat beragama ini
bersikap sedia memberi dan menerima bagi
memperkukuh jalinan dialog sedia ada.
Pada dasarnya, jalinan dialog ini bukan utk
menyatukan kepercayaan atau membandingkan
ajaran kedua-dua agama.
Sebaliknya, btjn. mencari nilai persamaan bagi
membina keharmonian hidup bersama dan
memenuhi perintah Tuhan agar dapat menjalin
hubungan baik sesama manusia.

 Dialog Muslim-Kristian signifikan dalam arena

hubungan
antarabangsa
dan
berlatar
belakangkan senario semasa yg melanda dunia
masakini, pd 13 Oktober 2007 seramai 138 wakil
pemimpin Sunni dan Syiah dgn wakil Kristian
menandatangan dokumen yang diikenali sbg A
Common Word Between Us and You.
Inisiatif ini dimulakan oleh Royal aal al-Bait
Institute for Islamic Thought yang berpusat di
Amman, Jordan bagi menggalakkan kajian
mendalam ttg dialog antara agama dan
membiaya beberapa simposium dialog yg
melibatkan penyertaan wakil Muslim dan
Kristian.

 Dokumen The Common Word (CW) direka khas

bagi menegaskan sekalipun perbezaan wujud,
asas persefahaman agama dan kerjasama
antara Muslim-Kristian begitu diperlukan dalam
kehidupan bersama.
Dialog Muslim-Kristian relevan dalam konteks
Malaysia.
Populasi
penduduk
Malaysia
berdasarkan banci tahun 2000 menunjukkan
penganut Kristian menduduki tempat ketiga
tertinggi dengan catatan 9.1 peratus selepas
Buddhis 19.2 peratus dan Muslim 60.4 peratus
daripada keseluruhan penduduk Malaysia yg
berjumlah 23.27 juta org.

 Kedua-dua agama ini turut berkongsi tema dialog

spt
penyebaran Alkitab, pembinaan rumah
ibadah dan isu penukaran agama.
Sebahagian besar drpd isu tsbt menimbulkn
kontroversi dan krisis perlembagaan sehingga
menuntut kedua-dua pihak berbincang dan
berdialog bersama bagi mencari penyelesaian yg
boleh disepakati bersama.
Dialog Muslim-Kristian dalam konteks Malaysia
berbeza daripada situasi Muslim-Kristian di luar
negara kerana di negara ini mereka berkongsi
banyak persamaan, iaitu sama-sama hidup
dalam konteks yang serupa.

 Kedua-dua
agama
ini
berkongsi
persekitaran dan politik yang sama.
Kedua-duanya adalah warga Malaysia
yang bernaung di bawah satu konteks
negara yang sama. Konteks inilah yang
membentuk persamaan dan semangat
solidariti antara Muslim-Kristian kerana
sama-sama
membina
gerakan
ketamadunan.

Muslim-Christian Relations
Today, Christians and Muslims are the two largest
faith communities in the world. They constitute
about half the population of the world.
Both religions are rooted in the monotheistic
tradition of the Patriarch Abraham and therefore,
Christians and Muslims share a common
heritage.
They worship virtually the same God, the God of
Abraham, though there are contrasts in their
respective understanding of the nature of the
Divine Being, God.

 For more than fourteen centuries, the followers of

these two religious communities have lived together
in periods of tension, hostility and open conflict.
The history of their interaction has been
characterized by mistrust and misunderstanding.
On the other hand, there have been periods where
Christians and Muslims have had a considerable
positive interaction.
The most significant changing point in the interreligious interaction between Christians and Muslims
has been issued in the Nostra Aetate resolution.

of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965),

which created a new atmosphere for a closer
fellowship between the adherents of both
Christianity and Islam.
In order to give a clear picture of the attempts of
the Catholic Church for a better understanding
between Christians and Muslims, we have to go
back to the pre-Vatican II period.
The history of Muslim-Christian interactions were
based on superficial polemics, which were
designed to denote the other, to vilify him, and
to present a libellous, distorted account of
Islams belief-system.

 In Christian history, Islam appears to

have been regarded as Christian heresy
rather than a distinctive religious
tradition.
However, Islam denied this, holding
itself to be a fresh revelation from God
and the final religion.
In the Islamic view, the gulf between
God and man is too great to be bridged
by Jesus or anyone else.

 Islam recognizes Christianity as a

revealed religion and calls Christians
as Ahl al-Kitab People of the Book
and not as a divine being.
There were two major conflicts which
affected the Christians-Muslims
relations, the Crusades amd the
Colonisation.

The Effect of the Crusades on

Christian-Muslim Relations
Islam and Christianity differ about the means
that God has used to reveal Himself.
The field of disagreement involves the character
of Prophethood and the concept of incarnation.
These major doctrinal
religions to stay apart.

themes

make,

both

With the spread of Islam, Christianity became a

minority, and therefore, the polemic against
Islam became more specialised.

 When the Westerners saw the quick rise of

Islam, which controlled almost all of the
Eastern part of the world and was then
directed to the European countries, they
thought of a way to stop it.
Thus, in cooperation with the Catholic
Christians, the Westerners found the Crusades
as an option and started the war against
Muslims and their religion.
The Crusades were seen by Christians as a
Holy War, because they were intended to
recover

land that allegedly belonged to the Christians.

The Crusades started at the end of the 11th century
to recapture the Holy Land (Jerusalem) from the
Muslims.
They started as a result of the call of Pope Urban II
in his sermon held in the council of Clermont (1095
A.C.) to free the Holy Land which was occupied by
the Saracens (the Christian name for the Muslims).
Some eminent historians maintain that the start of
this holy war was not the liberation of Jerusalem as
claimed by Urban II, but the fulfillment of Gregory
VIIs plan for the unification of the Christian Church.

 In addition, they view the Crusades as a colonial

campaign, a prelude to imperialism.
The Crusades were not waged only against the
Islamic Empire or the Turks, but were directed
finally against Islam, a religion, which was
considered by Christians as a Satanic religion or
a demonic religion of apostasy, and Muhammad
(p.b.u.h) was a false Prophet, a hypocrite and an
agent of the devil, therefore, it had to be
subdued.
In fact during the Crusades or the holy wars
launched against Muslims, the Islamic faith and
the Muslim societies were badly misunderstood
by Christians and Westerners.

 This led to religious hatred among the

followers of both religions.
For Muslims, according to Islamic theological
teachings, it is forbidden to vilify Jesus as he
is a Prophet of God.
The Crusades have had an important impact
on the mutual perceptions of Muslims and
Christians, which has been disproportionate
to their direct political effects.

 The Crusades were undertaken from a complex

combination of motives, both religious and temporal:
i. The rivalries between competing commercial
interests and between the emerging nation-states of
Europe;

ii. The Popes desire to reunite Christendom under

his authority following the East-West schism of 1054;
iii. A response to the initial Muslim conquests and to
the coming of the Seljuqs;
iv. A desire to regain control of the holy places of
Palestine, as well as to secure the passage of
pilgrims to Jerusalem.

 However, Christians saw the Crusades as a

just war (Perang yang adil) against Muslims
who had seized lands, once in the
possession of Christians.
It is also stated that the Crusades were not
wars of aggression because their aim was
the recovery of what had been Christian
territory.

The Effect of Colonisation on the

Muslim-Christian Relations
Another conflict, which involved religon, was the
colonial period where the West European nations
engaged in their colonial venture in Muslims regions.
The Christian missionaries welcomed the colonial
venture to spread the Gospel, to assist local Christian
communities, to establish medical care, schools and
social help for the people irrespective of their faith.
With the emergence of colonisation, the right time
had come to free the world from the danger of Islam.

 The main aim of colonisation was to control

the Muslim world and all its social,
economical and religious dimensions.
The colonial period caused manu problems
for the Muslims. It disunited and separated
them into small nations, even though they
were one nation or one Muslim Ummah.
At this time, Muslims faced the challenge of
the newly evolving epistemology and the
reinterpretation of Islamic theology.

Nostra Aetate Promoting a better

Muslim-Christian Relations
Both the Crusades and the Western
colonisation were directed to the Eastern part
of the world, which was under Muslim
control.
Therefore, the Muslim-Christian conflicts
have been religious in the sense of showing
which one is the true faith one must go with.
In other words, which one is the true faith
that grants man salvation in the world?

 The historical accumulated antipathy of Christians

toward Islam was changed in the Second Vatican
Council, which aimed for a better relationship with
Muslims.
The NA declaration had a deep impact on the
relations between the Church and Muslim world.
The third paragraph of this Declaration is of special
interest because it speaks about the Churchs
concern toward the Muslims and their faith.
NA have opened a new and more positive relation
with Muslims, as well as the adherents of other
world religions.

 From the text of NA, two main characteristics can

be extracted:

i. It highlights the common or related points

between the Christian and Muslim beliefs, noting
at the same time the essential difference: the
Christian profession of the divinity of Jesus.
ii. It opens up the possibility of a friendly
cooperation and mutual respect between the
followers of the two religions to create a peaceful
relations and harmonious modern society.

 At the beginning of the text regarding

Muslims, it is stated that upon the
Muslims, too, the Church looks with
respect (NA, par.3)
When the Church shows a kind of respect
toward Muslims, it means that Muslims are
recognised by the Church fathers as
followers of a Divine religion.
The Church advised the Christians to show
a high regard for Muslims and take them
as entities that should be admired.

 This kind of mutual respect will lead

to the development of friendships
and good relations between
Christians and Muslims.
The next sentence of NA which
indicates respect towards Muslims,
worship God, Who is One, Living,
Subsistent, Merciful and Almighty,
the Creator of the heaven and earth
This text mentions that the Muslims
worship and serve the true God.

 In this sense, both Christians and

Muslims adore, worship or praise the
One God, but the nature of
understanding the being or the
existence of the One God in Islam
differes from that in Christianity.