In February this year, Pope Francis met in Abu Dhabi with the Egyptian Sheikh Ahmad el-Tayeb, the grand imam of al-Azhar and a leading religious authority for many Sunni Muslims.
They signed a document of cooperation, pledging to work together to promote “human fraternity,” improve Christian-Muslim relations and fight against extremism. Francis later instructed the local churches to extend these efforts.
Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago has taken a lead in fostering relations between Catholics and Muslims. He has said that the document signed by the pope and imam in February “is a sign of the good that is possible between Christians and … we are brothers and sisters of the one, true God and the document on fraternity serves as a bridge inviting us to cross over the murky water of prejudice and fear that separates us so that we may encounter one another in a spirit of openness, trust and friendship.”
Many Catholics are surprised to learn that Islam has a long tradition of reverence for Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Because of this shared devotion to Mary, Cardinal Cupich has called Mary “an interreligious bridge” for Christians and Muslims.
Cardinal Cupich recently wrote in America magazine: “Like Catholics, Muslims believe Mary to be pure, courageous and faithful. They also believe that she was free from sin. The Quran calls her an example for believers, a woman of truth, a sign for all peoples and chosen above all women.”
The cardinal also identified three steps to building interreligious bonds: establishing and nurturing dialogue, striving for cooperation in daily life, and working toward mutual understanding of one another’s beliefs and practices.
Recognizing that third step as something we could do, on October 9, Precious Blood Renewal Center hosted a dinner and evening of sharing about Mary between Catholics and Muslims. The program, “Mother Mary in Islam and Catholicism,” was cosponsored with the Dialogue Institute of Kansas City.
About 60 people shared a supper of fine Turkish cuisine and then Catholic and Muslim scholars shared their traditions’ teachings and beliefs about Mary.
Michael Sanem, director of faith formation at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Kansas City, Missouri, began the evening with the presentation “Divine Mother, Divine Mover: A Marian Spirituality of Pilgrimage,” which he said was “based on two things that we Catholics share with our Muslim brothers and sisters: that is, a love of Mary and a deep devotion to the sacred practice of pilgrimage.”
Mary, Sanem said, is the “mother of pilgrims,” the “mover of pilgrims” and the “model of pilgrims herself.”
Pilgrimages “are present in almost all cultures and religions,” he said. An essential element of the pilgrimage is that pilgrim is transformed, he said. “It’s not like taking a cruise.”
“In Catholicism, Mary plays a unique role as a Mother of Pilgrims,” he continued. “She consoles and protects us in our sacred wanderings, and she ‘gives birth’ to pilgrimage sites with her apparitions.”
Sanem used Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” a long narrative poem that recounts the 14th century Italian poet’s allegorical journey through hell, purgatory and heaven, as an example of the role Mary plays in a pilgrim’s journey. Mary’s intervention with God out of loving concern for Dante’s salvation enable the poet to make his pilgrimage, Sanem said.
“This is a good way to understand the Catholic view of Mary,” he said. “She moves us. She is the mediatrix of Christ’s graces. Not the mediator, but the mediatrix, assisting Christ.”
The last part of Sanem’s presentation used scripture and tradition to talk about how Mary’s life itself was a pilgrimage. “From unwed, pregnant teenager, to woman giving birth in a stable, to refugee seeking asylum in Egypt, to a widow witnessing her beloved son be crucified, her life displays a radical trust in God and a willingness to move and move others through God’s mysterious plan of salvation.”
This was a good transition to the other two presentations that night.
Dr. Sofia Khan, a local physician and mother of five, gave an overview of Mary’s story as told in the Quran and focused on two lessons to draw from Mary’s story.
Khan noted that Mary, or Maryam as she is known in Arabic, is the only woman named in the Quran and that an entire “sura” is dedicated to Mary. (A sura is a chapter in the Quran.) The Quran shows upholds Mary as an exemplary believer: she is pious and devote, she listens to God’s messengers and follows their instructions even if she doesn’t totally understand. She always speaks the truth.
The Quran account resembles the accounts found in the Christian Testaments: Mary was born into a pious family; her parents were old, her mother barren; she conceives through the power of God, and she gives birth to Jesus.
The first lesson to draw from Mary’s story, according to Khan, is this miraculous birth. The story teaches us, she said, that “when God wants something, God only has to say ‘Be’ and it is.” The story, she said teaches us the power of God.
The second lesson Mary teaches us, Khan said is to have belief in the compassion of God. In the Quran’s telling of Mary’s story, there is no Bethlehem and no Joseph; Mary is all alone. She flees into the desert where she wanders in exile, afraid of the judgement of her neighbors and the shame her pregnancy would bring to her family.
Khan quoted the Quran as Mary, in labor under a palm tree, laments “Would that I had died before this and was a thing forgotten, utterly forgotten!” But God has not abandoned her. She hears a voice — whether the voice is an angel or of her yet unborn child is disputed by scholars — that directs her to a stream for water and dates for nourishment. She is saved from despair.
Khan said the lesson to learn is that God never abandons us.
The third speaker that evening was Uma Geyik, a high school chemistry teacher who has lived in Kansas City, Missouri, for two years with her husband and two children. In her presentation, “Lessons from Mary for Today” Geyik drew an analogy between the persecution of mothers and the children in Turkey today to the hardships and social ostracization endured by Mary and her Son.
Geyik told of the nearly 77,000 people arrested in Turkey since 2016 because they were followers of the cleric Fethullah Gülen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the U.S. since 1999. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has charged Gulen followers with fomenting a coup.
According to Geyik, however, the jailed people were members of social movements and worked in civil society to further peacemaking and democracy in Turkish society. They are teachers, doctors and journalists, she said. “They are peacemakers who have been labeled as terrorists.”
Many are imprisoned without ever standing trial. Among the prisoners are pregnant woman. Geyik, citing statistics from the advocacy group Advocates of Silenced Turkey, said that since the 2016 crackdown, 864 babies have been born to prisoners and continue to live with their mothers in prisons throughout Turkey.
She said social media campaigns by Advocates of Silenced Turkey have resulted in some of the women and babies being released. “We need to be the voices of silenced women,” Geyik said. “I am here tonight to be their voice.”
“We see Mary as an archtype,” Geyik said. Mary was oppressed, silenced and ostracized, but God did not abandoned her. Geyik said her dream is that the story of the oppression of Mary “will change the hearts of the tyrants … and the imprisonment of people and babies will stop.”
“I am here as a mother. I feel helpless. I cannot doing anything but make people aware,” Geyik said.
What about the differences?
Muslims and Catholics can celebrate the similarities in practices and beliefs they share about Mary while at the same time acknowledging that our traditions also diverge on points of theology.
The Jesuit scholar and professor of divinity at Harvard University Fr. Francis X. Clooney wrote a series of articles exploring Islam and the Quran to, in his words, help combat “dangerous ignorance” about another faith tradition.
His article on Mary noted many similarities between Catholic and Muslim devotions to Mary as well as the difference. He wrote: “I need not deny that other passages diverge further from Christian faith, yet without disrespect for Mary and Jesus.” (Emphasis is mine.)
Cardinal Cupich wrote about this, too, in his America article: “While contrasting ideas about Jesus have long been a dividing line between Christianity and Islam (Christians call him the Son of God, while Muslims call him a prophet), his mother Mary can more easily be seen as an interreligious bridge.”
He quotes from “Nostra Aetate,” the Second Vatican Council’s document on the relationship between the Catholics and non-Christians, “which explicitly mentions Mary as a point of agreement between Catholics and Muslims: ‘[Muslims] also honor Mary, [Jesus’] Virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion.’ ”
Cardinal Cupich notes that Marian pilgrimage sites in Syria, Turkey and Algeria, are visited by Christians and Muslims alike.
He also notes that in Lebanon, “a Muslim-majority country with a significant Christian minority, March 25 (the feast of the Annunciation) has been declared a national holiday. The idea originated with a Muslim, who also created the day’s motto, ‘Together around Mary, Our Lady.’ ”
Cardinal Cupich asks, “If Muslims and Christians in Lebanon can come together around ‘Mary, Our Lady,’ why can’t we?”
—Dennis Coday
Dennis Coday 