Meeting Muhammed

On the Monday following my rugby outing I left for what is called the JCMA Conference. JCMA stands for Jews Christians and Muslims of Australia, and this was their 'big' yearly conference. I put big in quotes because there were only about 80 people there, but it was the biggest one they've had yet.

As someone who has never been especially interested in interfaith work I was expecting a kind of I'm-okay-you're-okay-happy-sappy-pc-bs-lovefest, which is the impression I have gotten of a lot of American interfaith work.

The conference took place at a Catholic college called Pallotti (not to be confused with Pilates) about 1.5 hours outside Melbourne, essentially in the middle of nowhere. This is the view from the college.

The first person I met when I got there was Muhammed, a Malaysian Muslim in his early thirties studying in Melbourne for his PhD in Islamic Philosophy. He seemed like a nice guy, and we found out that we would be roomates for the next four days. I wasn't quite sure how I felt about that, but I figured I would go with the flow and see how things turned out.

The conference itself turned out to be a far more powerful and productive experience than I ever could have imagined. As opposed to the pc-bs approach that I was expecting, there was a real desire amongst the participants to engage in dialogue in the truest sense. People asked me questions about Judaism and challenged some of my ideas, especially about Israel. I had an opportunity to ask praciticing Muslims and Christians about their faiths, and raise questions about ideas that I either didn't understand or didn't agree with. The whole atmosphere of the conference was one of openness, including openness to disagreements and debates. In large groups we addressed some contentious issues like the legacy of the Crusades, who owns Abraham and whether there is currently a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. In the small "cluster groups", these issues continued to be addressed, but more often than not we took opportunities to raise other issues that were on our mind. These ranged from whether the Hebrew Bible and Quran are the word of God, and if not how might that affect Jews, Christians and Muslims to the Israel-Palestinian conflict (which I brought up, and actually had the chance to lead a session on). It was the first time for me that I felt comfortable really challenging people of other faiths on their beliefs, without fear of offending or starting a fist fight and it was wonderfully enlightening and energizing. These are some of the attendees.

As important as the large group sessions and cluster groups were, where I learned the most was in my room with Muhammed. Each night, when we got back to our rooms to go to sleep, he and I would talk about all sorts of issues of religion, politics and philosophy (to be fair, he did most of the talking about philosophy). This is where I feel like I really gained an greater understanding of Islam and was able to explain various aspects of Jewish thought and observance to him. We also spent several hours one night talking about the Israel-Palestinian thing. I/we get such a skewed view of Muslims and Islam in the States, it was great to be able to sit with someone who is a practicing and knowledgable Muslim and hear honestly what they think and what their religion actually says. It was a very powerful experience for me and I hope he and I can keep in touch to continue our conversations and keep learning from each other.