within our our respective circles
of of uh commitment
that's right there the venn diagram
becomes
very difficult that's right yeah
the overlapping that's right i would add
a um
another element that i talked about in
chapter one which is that
i think tragically so much in a
religious encounter
gets mediated through the secular west
such that um those of us committed to
our own religious traditions
in order to enter any kind of dialogue
in a religious dialogue we have to kind
of neutralize
our heart-held
beliefs and universal claims and i think
that in the next stage of interreligious
encounter and dialogue
there's a lot of fruit to be had with
members of different religious
traditions
examining each other from the heart of
one tradition to the heart of the other
tradition
and bypassing the secular west's
neutralizing program
right i you know i think the biggest
barrier
for christianity with islam is the time
factor
because it's it's a post-christian right
uh
declaration of revelation that that i
think is the greatest
obstacle i think if had islam been prior
to christianity that they would have no
difficulty
in recognizing and hong koons i i think
he admits that quite
clearly in his book that he he argues
that it's largely prejudice
that prevents us from seeing
uh a clearly prophetic character in
in the prophet muhammad sallallahu that
that is so similar
to the old testament prophets so i want
to just
um uh just look at something from a
from the jewish tradition that you're
familiar with also and just see what you
think about this
um i have a book on jewish theology that
was written by dr k
kohler it was actually he was the
president of the
hebrew union college which is
still in existence and he has a chapter
entitled christianity and
the daughter religions of judaism and in
that chapter he says that christianity
and islam are a fulfillment of the
prophetic words found in zechariah that
state
quote it shall come to pass on that day
that the living water shall go
forth from jerusalem half of them to the
eastern sea
and half toward the western sea and the
lord shall be king over the whole earth
and in that day shall the lord be one
and his name and his name one
so he says kohler about this that
the leading spirits of judaism recognize
this declaring both the christian
and muhammadan religions to be agencies
of divine providence
these voices these views voiced by
yehudah
levi mammonitis and the himanites were
reiterated by many enlightened rabbis of
later times
then he says later quote these point out
that both christian and muhammadan
nations believe in the same god
and his revelation to man in the unity
of the human race
and in the future life they have spread
the knowledge of god by a sacred
scripture
based upon our scripture they have
retained the divine commandments
essentially as they were phrased in our
decalogue
and have practically taught men to
fulfill the no hiddick laws of humanity
then he says
on account of the last fact the medieval
jewish authorities
considered christians to be half
proselyt
proselytes while muhammadans being pure
monotheists
were always still closer to judaism and
i think for me one of the most difficult
things that i find
about many and and you certainly are not
in this category by any stretch
but one of the things that i really find
troubling about
so many christians including some
catholics
is this idea that muslims somehow
worship
another god right and and and the
i mean he's this was traditional jewish
theology
like even though they had and he has his
criticisms of islam in that chapter
but they did recognize the divine agency
uh in the religion i think that's an
argument that you're making in your book
but there are many christians that truly
believe that islam is is a kind of
anti-christic
phenomenon that it's a force of the
devil and
these are the things that i think make
it most difficult especially in america
in a in a multicultural society where
you have all these different religions
and so how can we better address that on
both sides
on on on the muslim side because i think
we have our offensive
uh uh proselytizers
uh as well so on both sides we have a
real
problem uh of communicating and
especially in a time when atheism
is is on the rise and and and organized
religion is really uh denigrated
and and frowned upon i mean we saw
recently with the uh
the tragic um display on
what was on display in the uh is the
senate hearings with uh
amy coney barrett where religion is just
so anesthetized to use a religious term
that at a time when i think
believers especially of the abrahamic
phase should be
have a much greater understanding of one
another's face
for sure i mean i think unfortunately at
least in christianity and catholicism
we are not raising our children with an
understanding of our own faith
much less anybody else's faith so the
catechetical challenges that we face in
our own communities are pretty severe
so when one's ignorant and that's why
this course i teach is so funny because
students take it because they know that
they're ignorant about islam and want to
learn about islam but they don't get
that they're also ignorant about
christianity
so they end up learning a lot about
christianity while they're
you know taking a course that they think
is really about islam
um so i think education
and what you know the work that you're
doing already right uh
education is a is is a an indispensable
piece
of this puzzle that we have to do
together and as you say
we are on the side of the angels you
know given
um the rise of secularism
those of us who believe deeply in our
own
especially abrahamic phase
need to unite i do think i am very
persuaded by john levinson's work though
at harvard right that we did we also
don't want to sort of
um fall into the modernist trap of of
of liberalism abrahamic religions
together right but i don't think
that's what you've been suggesting but i
just want to raise that as a caution
i mean from your own book i i tend to
decide with
toll uh amongst the arguments like i
i'm not convinced by um i i mean i like
watts i've read watts i like craig
and dell i mean i think they're all very
sincere people
some of them passed on i actually bought
uh in london at a used bookstore uh
dr watts first arabic grammar that had
his
name and and notes and everything i just
by pure serendipity found
in the bookstore but i think they they
were very serious
in their attempts but they did fall into
a kind of
californian approach to uh
yeah which which i think you're
definitely
avoiding and and and i i certainly
commend you on that but
i i mean i would argue that that we
we have to recognize you know the
differences
and they are fundamental i i i'm
i i really love dorothy sayers and
yeah she's great i i'm and i'm talking
about her theology not about her
story that's right i've tried it too
yeah i read a book she wrote called
creed or chaos
which was a very convincing argument
about
we can't reduce religion to boy scout
ethics right because we could all be
mormons if that was the case
that that ethics is important
but i think stoic ethics is as good as
as a lot of ethics that are out there so
somebody does not have to be religious
to be good
uh ethically or morally but creed
matters
and and that the fundamental
uh creed of christianity
islam negates two of the most important
elements of that creed which is the
trinity
and the salvific sacrifice
of of christ on the cross and that
that is an immense uh there's it's
really an
insurmountable uh barrier i think
um but what i would say
is and i think the germans have done
remarkable work
in really recognizing that the the
prophet muhammad
peace be upon him was
was not ignorant of christianity and
that
the christianity that that is addressed
in the quran
is the syriac christianity that existed
in that area and i think the germans
have really shown
that one of the the orthodox and the
catholic
attitudes about that understanding of
christianity that's presented in the
quran is not
recognizing the syriac christianity
that existed in the middle east but the
other thing that i think is really
important is to recognize and this is
something hans kun says and i'll just
from his book um he actually
quotes uh one of the great german uh
scholars uh of uh
of um uh this this period when they were
looking at
the origins so schlatter who adolf
schlatter
who wrote a book called the evolution of
jewish christianity into islam
and then he and adolf von harnach before
him saw islam as the
as the next phase of jewish christianity
so he says hans kun
[Music]
responding to schlatter's remark islam
is a transformation of jewish
christianity
which would in turn transform version of
judaism that took place on arabian soil
at the hands of a great prophet
and he and that's literally what he says
hans kun says about this
even if we could never scientifically
verify a genetic connection
the traditional historical parallels are
inescapable
and how can we explain why muhammad
sallallahu alaihi saddam although he
rejected
orthodox christology nevertheless always
spoke sympathetically of jesus as the
great messenger indeed
as the messiah who brought the gospel in
his theology and history of jewish
christianity hans jokim shops
taking up the research of hernik and
schlatter and completing it with studies
he goes on
says quote though it may not be possible
to establish exact
proof of the connection the indirect
dependence of muhammad salad
on sectarian jewish christianity is
beyond any doubt
this leaves us with a paradox of truly
world historical dimensions
the fact that while jewish christianity
in the church came to grief
it was preserved in islam and with
regard to some of its driving impulses
at least
it has lasted till our own time and then
kun writes
surprisingly christian theologians have
hitherto scarcely known of these
historical insights
much less taken them seriously this to
me
is just a really important area of uh
you know of research that i think these
are the two areas that i'd really like
to see
more christian
muslim engagement in the understanding
of
the jewish christianity that really
reemerges in the 7th century
uh hence saint st john of damascus
idea that this is really a schism right
like he saw he saw it as a schism
and then and then the other is
these areas where both traditions enrich
the other tradition
so where the christians really enriched
early muslim tradition
and and continue to do so to be honest
with you i mean i like
i benefited from your work which is
written by a christian theologian
one of my favorite writers is joseph
peeper i've benefited immensely from his
work
so i think you're
your challenge which i got from this
book is that
christians do have a resource in uh
in looking at islam in with it with a
more charitable light
um maybe you could just uh have some
concluding remarks about that and then
we can open up for a little
some questions and answers um
sure so i agree with everything you said
i hope
you weren't hoping for some disagreement
because we haven't come up with any uh
this evening
i'm not an historian so the sort of work
the avenues that you just mentioned
would not be
avenues that i would be able to um to do
work and i'm simply not equipped
but but it is true that there is there
are interesting avenues to be pursued
there and that have been pursued
um so that's great and i think uh
continuing the sorts of cooperative
efforts between
muslims and christians and cooperative
scholarly efforts are
are really needed to move forward
we have a question the first question is
as a woman
scholar a female scholar and a
theologian
how do you see the quran and the prophet
muhammad's traditions
in relation to women
um that is
a um complex question
that i um
i'm not really equipped to answer quite
frankly um
not being a scholar of the quran and
particular in particular
not having looked at study the quran
with this particular
angle um that's fair i will
um i will
maybe just say that i mistrust a lot of
modern attempts to reconstruct
at reconstruction um through uh a kind
of anachronistic lens
but um uh
but that's all i can say yeah well how
can i just maybe ask you just because i
think um
both our traditions although we do there
are
great scholars uh female scholars uh
in the islamic tradition probably less
so but there certainly are some great
mystics from
uh from i mean uh saint teresa diablo is
one of the ones that comes to mind and
julian of norwich and others i mean some
really great
but as a as a female
working in a a largely male realm
that's been dominated by males and male
thought do you
do you see any uh you know is there
something that a woman's perspective
that can bring that can enrich uh
theology
i'm really allergic to those kinds of
questions
um dr youssef i'm i'm glad you are
but i mean it's it's something that a
lot of people
do uh but i i'm fine with that and i
i won't uh i won't pursue it anymore i
mean it just depends on
on who the woman is and whether the
woman has valuable things to say
right so um there's uh
diversity on uh on both of those
realms and and i um
i mean what i mean to say is let me be
clear
um i'm grateful that uh
that the women who've come before me in
academia
have paved the way for me to feel as
comfortable as i do
and as valued as i am so
i'm certainly grateful and not naive
about
about the women who've come before me
and yet i um
i don't want to kind of essentialize the
work that that
i do and that other women do in the
academy
as being contributions from women
i think what's most distinctive about
the human person is our
rational capability over
i think that's that's a perfect answer i
really appreciate that answer
and and i and as somebody who
um you know i i recently learned of
people doing citation counts of female
scholars
like to to kind of shame uh
dissertations
yeah and what happened with the
encyclical the
i read a criticism of fratelli tutti
that just came out pope francis is
encyclical
that you know he might have um cited a
muslim 12 times but he
never cited a woman and that's a real
problem and it's like
interesting i went back and looked at my
dissertation and i did cite women but i
didn't cite them because they were women
right excited because they had exemplary
scholarship
and and one of the things just a little
bit of irony here
um some somebody we we did a recent
event and you know i invited you to be a
speaker at that event
and and they were very upset that we
didn't have any female speakers
and it occurred to me at it ironically
that
you were the first person that came to
mind but not because you were a woman
just because because i think you're
an excellent scholar and so yeah no i do
appreciate that
and and that was a wonderful um
clarification because
we're living in these times where
um you know i see it as a kind of
demonic
force that is creating this gender
race and um
class warfare which is an old trick of
the devil
and so i'm 100 with the answer that you
gave that
that that we are whether we're male or
female we are rational
uh creatures and certainly in academia
it's that's that's the the component
although i would say i mean i uh
i have recently been reading it stein's
um essays on women and i've found them
really fascinating so
it is a it is an interesting um
topic um so
if there are more similar verses in the
three semitic religions
and there is a big bond between them
then why do they act like
enemies in the world well that's the
million dollar question
right um because there's so much more
uh there's you know the their the
encounters between different religious
people the factors that go in the
historical the political the
sociological the familial
the geographic um there's so many
factors that go into religious conflict
and
and i i i will also say i'm persuaded
that
uh by like bill cavanaugh's work and
others that
uh what we deem often
wars of religion are actually um
politic the sort of political wars of
either the rise of the nation state or
there are some severe political factors
that come in that
make the sort of term wars of religion
realm this a real
misnomer
that makes sense um
so uh
here um this is a question to you how do
you perceive
feminism in the light of catholic faith
um i'm grateful for the
feminists who came before me like i've
said already uh who paved
the way for me uh i uh
am a catholic first so whatever feminist
literature i am going to read and absorb
i'm going to read and absorb it as
a an observant catholic um
so sort of my primary lens of who i am
is my religious faith and um
it's uh you know it's kind of an
interesting because right now in the
muslim community
historically i think there's there's
been somewhat of an immunity to some of
the negative
aspects of modern
feminism and so i think a lot of muslims
right now are grappling with
is there a space for uh
feminist thought within uh the
traditional islamic and and and i think
and i would i would recommend edith
stein is a good place to start because i
think
um she really does have a a type of
feminism that's
deeply rooted in tradition and uh
and and again back to the personhood
yeah you know that
yeah recognizing the imago dei
uh that transcends gender right
um that's embodied and yet
is fundamentally um
personhood is at the center not the
right gender
but not the gender right um
so dr moreland not having not read your
book is muhammad's prophecy
compatible with christian theology well
i've been a bad moderator if i didn't
get that
out of you yet but
[Music]
i think i think people have to read your
book because
it really is a subtle argument and and i
think you're
making a profound case for recognizing a
type of prophecy
but um so uh my book doesn't argue for
particular moments in the quran or
particular
it doesn't it doesn't go to that level
it really does a proprietary kind of
groundwork
for opening up uh the theoretical
possibility that muhammad is a
prophet for christians then there's a
whole
process of discernment that has to come
into play given particular moments of
revelation
so christians could never adopt the
quran wholesale for example
because it's incommensurate different
incommense or differences that
dr yousef already spoke to right
vis-a-vis christology and the trinity
however i do draw upon this
funky category in the catholic church
called private revelation
where the church itself understands that
post
post-closing of the canon namely
post-closing of the writing of the new
testament
god continues to speak to the human race
and so we've got this category called
private revelation that i think muhammad
theoretically could
fall into this category of god
continuing to speak
to god's beloved community
after the closing of the canon but yes
it is true that that is a
um in my book you really need to read
each chapter because
you need all of the pieces for the
argument yeah yeah
very much so it's not a book that some
some books you can read uh
the chapter independent of others but
yours is not one of them
yeah and and i think the uh you know the
conclusion
is is uh it's very interesting i mean i
i would for those of people that
that are well trained in islamic
theology i think it's a
it's a very interesting read because a
lot of muslims are not familiar
with the rich catholic tradition and i
was struck
with uh with uh your chapter on aquinas
on
uh on prophecy because there were so
many uh
aspects of of uh aquinas's understanding
of prophecy
that that are really found in
in our tradition as well um and the
prophetic voice
does not end i mean prophet we believe
prophets
ended with the prophet muhammad but the
prophetic voice
um there there's a uh
tradition in which the prophet elijah
said that the
the the scholars and and the ulama
really means not just an academic
scholar but somebody who's
deeply died in in a spiritual uh
tradition um
that they are the inheritors of prophets
and
and and so they have that portion of the
prophetic voice
and we also have a really interesting
tradition that says
that a true dream is is 146
of prophecy so it's actually it's a
portion of prophecy
and so in the chapter of uh joseph
the the king has a true dream and and
and and joseph interprets that dream so
that type of access to prophecy
continues
on somebody asked
why aren't the monotheistic religions
uniting against atheistic agenda to
demonize religion
and what do you think can be done to
foster more unity
i think we we did discuss that
and part of it is it is things like this
i mean i
uh have immense regard for your work and
and and what you're trying to do and i i
actually thought this book was a
courageous book because i know
i yeah i know how um
and i also understand why at vatican 2
they were
really walking on eggshells because
[Music]
this is a 2 000 year old tradition
that you know that that
has has held true to these truths for
2 000 years and for
you know to to kind of move into these
other realms that traditionally
were seen as um as so far
divorced is very difficult so i i think
in that way
i hope more people i hope a lot of
catholics read your book
um but i yeah i really do um
the uh yeah
this one is about um the abyssinian
church
became separated from the western
eastern catholic churches a century or
more after the nicean council
it had more cooperative relations with
islamic civilization it also touts
itself for not being outside of the
realm of the catholic church and
preserves
more books than the western eastern
catholic church biblical text
what would be a relationship there that
western catholics can learn from that
ancient relationship about islam
and what can muslims deduce or
understand about christianity from that
um that that church uh i don't know how
familiar with the abyssinian church at
the but it was more of a
it was a i mean i don't know if they
would call themselves monophysites but
the the
orthodox church called the monophysites
they tend to use i think a term
diaphysite
is the term that they prefer but they
were definitely a monophysite
uh tradition and uh they
the the prophets uh saladin his
companions
he said he sent them to the christian um
lands saying that they will not
persecute you
go there there's a just christian king
and he won't persecute you so there are
actually two migrations
uh to the church and and uh but it was a
church that i think the orthodox
tradition is seen as
it was kind of a uh heretical
uh branch but it is i think an example
of muslim christian
cooperation in the past
[Music]
this one are there any verses in the new
testament that allude to the coming of
the prophet muhammad
i mean muslims say there are and i think
to be fair
christians would would uh generally say
no they would interpret the
the famous in john about the the
paraclete or the
uh he's called the pharaoh in arabic
which in syriac was very close to the
name muhammad
that the word for and which is why a lot
of the syriac christians
ended up converting to islam because
it's it's like
which is for the paraclete so they kind
of saw that as a
as a yeah um does catechism
841 mean the catholic church teaches
that muslims will have salvation
on judgment day regard regardless of
believing in jesus as god's son
i don't know 841 but i don't know what
i'm referring to
yeah i think the question is is do does
the church still
hold to the doctrine of no salvation
outside of the church
no and i i actually francis sullivan
who's a jesuit wrote a great book on the
history of the development of that
doctrine
and maintains really that
understood appropriately the church
didn't has never really
maintained that particular position
um in its sort of degenerate form but
that's a great book i recommend it
no no real time to go in adhe into it
here but
god wills all of god's people to be
saved
there's a there's a one of my favorite
um
verses is acts 34
where peter peter says um that
that anyone who believes in god and acts
righteously uh from whatever land will
be acceptable
by god and and and i think that's a
that seems to be a very um
[Music]
generous but also seems to be compatible
with the mercy of god
so we have a tradition in uh one of our
great theologians
imam al-ghazali
and he made an argument which to me is
very compelling because
we tend to have the tradition of no
salvation outside of islam
i mean there are a lot of muslims that
believe that
but he made an argument that anyone who
sincerely
seeks the truth and and dies before
finding it
will be will be saved uh
with god because they're not rejecting
because the the word in the quran that's
used for
a disbeliever which actually means
an ingrate means somebody who's
ungrateful in its
in its fundamental meaning but it also
means somebody who rejects
or covers up the truth once they see
it so it's like they see the truth but
then they end up covering it up
so um dr anna thank you
uh they're deep analog for what you just
said in the catholic tradition for sure
yeah i i would agree um
thank you so much i know it's late for
you and uh i
but i really appreciate the time i do
hope your book
gets a wide readership which is thank
you why
why why i read it thank you and
yeah and and uh and i look forward to
the further collaboration with
amir stein because i think you're gonna
uh
be doing something for merstein on this
but um
thank you it's been wonderful to speak
with you this evening
yeah great and uh give my uh best
regards to because i you you seem like a
powerhouse
couple because i was looking at your
your husband's a very um i think
very accomplished uh legal scholar there
at villanova
yeah yeah so
my regards to him also thank you
i i hope we we get uh to collaborate
further in the future
but i would i would love it i would
invite it great
thanks for your time likewise yeah
thank you everybody for tuning in
um i would really request
that i want to thank really dr anna
moorland
i think she's uh she's really a powerful
um voice and um she gave a really
incredible talk
at uh at the dominican college that i
was
um honored to be there and i just
uh felt her sincerity
and i think this book really confirmed
for me that she's somebody that
uh is really uh one of the good people
out there that's doing good work
[Music]
she she uh she said to me um
you know that she wasn't when i said
i'll call you dr
boyle and she said no no i doctor i
don't
because i don't save bodies and i said
well but the theologians save souls
so it's it's a much it's much greater
uh to be a doctor of uh theology than a
doctor of physiology so anyway
i hope everybody continues to support
zaytuna and we have a 12 000 strong
program i really hope that you'll help
us
with that so on that note may you have a
blessed
[Music]
month of uh remembering our beloved
prophet elijah who was born in this
month
and i think uh we're certainly blessed
to uh accept the prophets elizabeth as
our prophets
uh prayers and peace be upon him and
upon all the prophets
and inshallah may allah protect all of
you in this time of tribulation keep
your
family safe keep your homes safe and uh
maybe continue to be able to spread uh
the light of knowledge
and the light of truth uh wherever we
are
and with whom ever we're with
thank you
thank you president hamza youssef and dr
anna moreland
and thank you to all the attendees who
have joined us for the rubio series
we look forward to your presence at our
future events which you can learn more
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jazakallahu khairan assalamu