4th International Meeting for Muslim Friends of the Focolare Movement

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DIVERSITY IS NOT A THREAT
BUT A GIFT AND AN ENRICHMENT

4^th International Meeting
for Muslim Friends of the Focolare Movement

at Castelgandolfo, Rome, 25-28 October 1999

"The world of self-interest and of power has ended. The moment has come for each one of us to go back to our own countries and take the message that has echoed in our hearts these days: to choose only God and to trust only God." These were the words of Iman Bachar, the most authoritative Islamic figure in Spain, at the conclusion of the fourth international meeting for Muslim Friends of the Focolare Movement.
Imam Bachar continued: "This is an art we have to learn… We have not come here for dialogue, but for something which goes beyond that. I consider these days to be a school of prophecy where we have learned this art in order to preach it, to live it. We have to start using a new dictionary - the words of Jesus, of Moses and of Mohammed. Our words must come from a divine dictionary, not from politics or from power. We have to break down the barriers within us. The Focolare Movement has taught us that we are all believers, that we are one family if we take the message of God, of love, of prayer, of compassion to others, to everyone. This message is a seed which was planted more than 50 years ago. We will take it ahead with love, with peace and through our brotherhood. May God help us."

The Iman’s words were received with a long applause by more than 250 Muslim participants coming from 25 different countries – from Algiers to Serbia, Kosovo and Macedonia, from the United States to Pakistan, from Lebanon, Philippines and Argentina to many European countries. Many of them were Imams.
"We have been created as a gift for each other. This is a truth that we have experienced in these days. We have to be messengers in the world through loving, not with words, but with our lives and certainly not through imposing our ideas," said Enzo Fondi, delegate for the Focolare’s interreligious dialogue in Rome together with Natalia Dalla Piccola. He concluded his address by proposing that the experience of those days be sealed with a pact of mutual love, the same pact which was made at the beginning of the Movement. This was the culminating moment of the conference.

Chiara Lubich had opened the meeting by speaking of her experience on prayer with references to the Gospel and to the Koran, as well as the writings of Islamic mystics. "We cannot live without breathing; prayer is the breath of the soul. It is part of our make-up as human beings," said Chiara. "Prayer is something profoundly cherished by members of other religions. In them we can discover deep experiences of prayer which give witness to the hidden but efficacious action of God who urges human beings to pray."
Referring to the specific aim of the Focolare spirituality – unity – Chiara spoke of a way to union with God which is totally evangelical: "It is a way revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. We find God when we love our neighbour. It is only in this way that unity with our neighbours is guaranteed and at the same time we discover Him alive and palpitating in our hearts. In turn, this union with God spurs us on to love our neighbours with a love that is not superficial, but radical to the point of being ready to give our life for the other."
"In Islam too, the root of union with God lies in love," Chiara continued. She then quoted from an Islamic spiritual text: "… God has from all eternity predestined us to love. Each component of the universe aspires towards mutual attraction, like gum attracts specks of dust. Heaven thus says to the earth, ‘Hail! We are made for each other, just as iron is made for a magnet.’"

All the experiences shared during the days of the conference by Muslim participants who came from zones of conflict such as Kosovo and Bosnia showed that love is the strength which "keeps you sane in the face of tragedy"All the experiences shared during the days of the conference by Muslim participants who came from zones of conflict such as Kosovo and Bosnia showed that love is the strength which "keeps you sane in the face of tragedy", as Tima and Sabit from Bosnia said. They added, "It is love which generates solidarity among everyone – with Muslim, Orthodox and Catholic brothers and sisters". Another participant, Mohammed V., said that in Algiers love had succeeded in building bridges with the fundamentalists and in the face of the slaying of the seven Trappist monks, it transformed the feeling of violence into a new and radical commitment to spread love among Muslim brothers and sisters. There were many other stories which gave witness to a love which overcame hatred and violence, revealing a hitherto undiscovered chronicle, hidden in the relationships woven day by day.

The experiences of six Imams from Kansas, California, Ohio, Indiana and New York illustrated the unexpected developments that had emerged as a result of the meeting between Afro-American leader, W. D. Mohammed, and Chiara Lubich in 1997 when he had invited Chiara to share her Christian experience with 3000 Muslims gathered in the mosque in Harlem. Imam David Shaheed, a court judge in the State of Indiana, shared his experience of last year’s meeting in Castelgandolfo: "It was one of those experiences which change your life. I understood very deeply that we all have the same humanity. When I’m on the bench now, each offender appearing in front of me is no longer just a number. He or she is a person … and if I can manage to show the same love to them that was shown to me, then there is hope that their lives can change too."

Professor S. S. Sayeed, a lecturer in Comparative Religions in the University of Sind, in Pakistan, shared about Loppiano, the little town of the Focolare, where he spent some time to deepen his understanding of the spirituality of the Focolare Movement. He is writing a book on the impact of this spirituality on members of other religions. "This spirituality has opened new horizons of universality in my thinking. Jesus says that even if we have little faith we can move mountains and he exhorts us to have faith in God. We can go ahead overcoming all the obstacles that we find in the way to universal unity, the unity of humanity, not only among Christians and Muslims, but till all may be one. Islam too exhorts us to love others before ourselves and it affirms that God created us different in order to bring about unity in diversity. This is the plan of God."

On Thursday 28 october,the participants joined the meeting with the Pope in
St Peter’s Square, at the conclusion of the Interreligious Assembly held in the Vatican.

The Focolare Movement embarked on interreligious dialogue in the late 1970s. It is a "dialogue based on spirituality" and over the years it has revealed a great fruitfulness. Dialogue with the Islamic world, which started off as something occasional, based only on personal contacts built by members of the Focolare in Islamic countries, gradually had important developments. There are now 6,500 Muslims in contact with the Focolare Movement. Among them are Imams, many Islamic followers and others who, in contact with the Movement, have returned to the practice of the principles of Islam. What unites us is the spirituality of the Movement through which they find the motivation and a confirmation to seek a more profound adherence to the essence of Islamic spirituality. Our Muslim friends are strongly committed to taking the spirit of unity everywhere, especially in those places where violence and racial and religious intolerance seek to create divisions between the various components of society. The aim of the Movement’s interreligious dialogue is certainly not to create one religion, but rather to collaborate as builders of a universal brotherhood.

(23-03-2000)

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