Narratives on both sides of Christian-Muslim relations traditionally emphasize distrust, fear, polemics, and military expansionism. Yet as historian Richard Bulliet has shown, this discourse of confrontation (popularized in the 1990s as “the clash of civilizations”) obscures the reality of long periods of trade and cultural exchange. In fact, Bulliet coins the term “Islamo-Christian civilization,” arguing that these “fraternal twins” expanded into new territories at about the same time, with Christians facing the more daunting challenge of evangelizing mostly polytheists in northern and eastern Europe and Muslim caliphs seizing lands previously Christian, Jewish, or Zoroastrian. Other parallels abound: they both experienced the emergence of a distinctively religious leadership in the ninth and tenth centuries; Sufi brotherhoods and the great Catholic orders like the Franciscans and the Dominicans began to expand in the 13th century; the great Christian theologians like Thomas Aquinas and the leading scientists of Europe were propelled forward in their work through the translations of countless Arabic manuscripts brought from Spain, Sicily, and elsewhere.
However, these observations by no means overlook the wounds in the Muslim psyche—namely, the Crusades and Western colonialism. Although the Crusades had limited military and geopolitical impact at the time, they remain etched in the Islamic imagination to the point that the word “crusade,” used by U.S. president George W. Bush in connection with the 2001 military campaign in Afghanistan, instantly stirred up anger throughout the Muslim world. To many Muslims then and now, the brutal massacre of Muslims, Jews, and local Christians in the taking of Jerusalem in 1099 came to epitomize the Crusades as a whole. Then came the shock of the three great premodern empires of Islamdom in the 18th century—the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals—slowly run over by an aggressive Western military, technological, and cultural powerhouse. And finally, Muslims generally perceived that the flood of missionaries into their lands were part and parcel of the overall colonial strategy.
The postcolonial period has been marked by unprecedented efforts at dialogue in three phases. A monumental shift occurred in the Catholic Church in 1962 with the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate, which recognizes that Muslims share in the Abrahamic worship of the one God and mentions their rituals with great respect. In 1970, the World Council of Churches set up a vigorous program of Muslim-Christian dialogue. Finally, with the attacks of September 11, 2001, on U.S. soil and those that followed elsewhere, the initiative shifted to the Muslim side. Momentum for Islamic unity began to build with the Amman Message issued by King Abdullah II of Jordan and the following international conferences, resulting in 2006 in a far-reaching consensus on the issue of who is a Muslim, a condemnation of takfīr (declaring another Muslim an apostate), and clear guidelines as to who is authorized to issue fatwas (legal opinions). This movement then issued a document in October 2007 (“A Common Word,” based on Q. 3:64) addressed to the Pope and all Christian leaders that stated that the core beliefs of Christians and Muslims are love for God and love for neighbor. World peace, it said, is predicated on Muslims and Christians committing to fraternal dialogue and bold cooperation. A climate of mistrust on both sides, however, fanned by regional conflicts and political considerations, has continued to challenge religious leaders’ attempts to transmit this spirit of dialogue to the masses.
See also Crusades; minorities
Further Reading
Richard Bulliet, The Case for Islamo-Christian Dialogue, 2004; Hugh Goddard, A History of Muslim-Christian Relations, 2000; David L. Johnston, Earth, Empire, and Sacred Text: Muslims and Christians as Trustees of Creation, 2010; David A. Kerr and Stephen R. Goodwin, World Christianity in Muslim Encounter: Essays in Memory of David A. Kerr, 2009; Frederick Quinn, The Sum of All Heresies: The Image of Islam in Western Thought, 2008; Ataullah Saddiqi, Christian-Muslim Dialogue in the Twentieth Century, 1997; Miroslav Volf, Ghazi bin Muhammad, and Melissa Yerington, eds., A Common Word: Muslims and Christians on Loving God and Neighbor, 2010.
DAVID L. JOHNSTON