Lee Bryant has resided in Waterloo for 21 years. She is author of three books, Counsellor, Therapist and Teacher

Famous 5 Women in Canadian History
Vol 9 2000

In the fall of 1999, a monument honouring the “Famous Five” was erected on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

Who are the Famous Five?

When I mention that I devised and taught a course on Women in Canadian History, women’s attention is perked.

“Yeah, wasn’t Emily Carr the famous artist who painted forests and totem poles?” or, “Yes, I’d like to find out more about when women became persons .. and who were the Famous Five?”

Let me tell you the story of Emily Murphy, one of the five, whose life and circumstances prompted the famous “persons” case.

Emily Ferguson was born in 1868 in the village of Cookstown, Ontario. Her father, Isaac, was a wealthy landowner and businessman and a Conservative, or Tory. The family entertained many of the prominent men in the Canada of their day. Among their guests was Sir John A Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister. It is likely that Emily learned a lot about politics around the dinner table. One of her four Irish grandparents was a Member of Parliament for 27 years. A cousin on her mother’s side became a Supreme Court Judge who later became a Senator and was knighted. On her father’s side there was a Member of Parliament for Simcoe and Cardwell, another was a Justice of Ontario’s Supreme Court. Her three brothers were lawyers. Emily was completely unlike her genteel mother who, like many women of her social position in that day, was brought up to look ornamental and attract a husband. Emily’s father paid a tutor to journey the 25 kilometers from Barrie every Saturday morning to teach the five children penmanship. The concept behind this training was to teach them to hold their pens properly so they would have the ability to write for hours without getting cramped fingers.

The local Anglican rector prepared them for private school in Toronto. Emily went to Bishop Strachan School in Toronto, an exclusive grammar school for daughters of wealthy families; it was patterned on the British school system for the children of the elite. Life there was very different from the country school in Cookstown.

Here, the boisterous Emily was given a classical education; she studied Latin and religious knowledge, with heavy emphasis on memorization.

Emily developed a remarkable memory which, years later, caused Nellie McClug, who became her friend when they were pioneers and writers in the then exciting frontier city of Edmonton, to say that Emily’s mind was encyclopedic. Emily was fifteen years old and a student at Bishop Strachan when she met Arthur Murphy, a blond and handsome man of 26 who was studying for the Anglican ministry at Wycliffe College. She married him when she was nineteen, and led a typical life of an Anglican minister’s wife in the parishes of southern Ontario in the 1880s, except that she was younger than most of the women she taught in Bible classes. She arranged and co-ordinated fund-raising events and researched stories for Arthur’s sermons.

For ten years the Murphys moved from small cities and towns, and they had three daughters. Arthur was valued for his community work and business ability.

Emily was very happy in one parish particularly, Chatham. But she was not content to be a mother only. With household help, a maid and a house-maid, she had time for her reading, oil painting and community work.

Arthur so excelled in running a parish that the church would be on its feet financially, so the Bishop of Huron asked him to become a missionary in Western Ontario. For a year the Murphys moved every two weeks. In strange hotel rooms at night, Emily began writing her impressions of people and events.

The Mission Society was so impressed with Arthur’s dedication and success that they asked him to go to England to preach and teach for two years. The Murphys were delighted – to cultivated Canadians of that period, England, their homeland, seemed the epitome of culture and civilization.

In 1898 they set sail for England. While Arthur was preaching and the children were in school, Emily explored on her own. First she visited the places she had read about in history books: the Tower of London, the British Museum, Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park. Then she began noticing the people on the streets; men in rags begging for money; rotting tenements, and the stinking garbage in the alleys of the big industrial cities.

Emily had an encounter that launched her career as a crusader for women’s rights. She set out for a trip on a pleasure steamer down the River Thames. She was stopped short by a girl whose horribly disfigured face caused people to walk around her. Emily, in her forthright manner, began to question the girl about her deformity.

The girl explained that she had been working in a match factory. She was constantly in air that was filled with phosphorous fumes that eventually caused a disease known as “matchmaker’s leprosy”. The teeth ache and then fall out, and later the loathsome leprosy eats its way into the roof of the mouth and inside the nose and then eats away at the jaw. Girls frequently lost their sight before death.

Emily seethed. Who cared? Who took responsibility? Her world view changed. She could not witness injustice and then forget about it. Emily Murphy no longer visited cathedrals and art galleries, but deliberately entered the world of Charles Dickens and journeyed into the back alleys and tenement sections of London. Her social conscience was raised, never to diminish

Dr Mahmoud Sadek is a retired professor of Archeology and Art History, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. He received his B A from the University of Alexandria, Egypt, his M A from the University of Toronto, and his PhD from Columbia University, New York, USA. He founded and chaired the Classical Archeology Program at Guelph from 1973-79. He has directed Archeological excavations in Egypt, France and Spain, and specializes in Egyptian, Greek and Roman Archeology on which he has published many books and articles

Who are the Albanians
Vol 9 2000

“Land of Albania !
Let me bend mine eyes on thee . . . “

This article will attempt to trace the history of a people who are little known or understood.

It was the geographer and astronomer of Alexandria, Egypt, Claudius Ptolemy (90-160 A.D.) who first referred to the “Albana” people, an Illyrian tribe. Their capital city was Albanopolis near the coastal port of Durres, and not far from Tirana, the capital of modern day Albania.

The early history of the area occupied by present day Albania begins in the middle of the third century B.C. The Illyrians founded a kingdom on parts of the coast and in the region surrounding the modern city of Shkodra.

The Illyrians were probably an Indo-European people who had settled in the Balkan peninsula in pre-historic times.

The land of Illyria included not only the Albania of today but also the Roman provinces of Dalmatra (Yugoslavia before the partition) and Epirus (today in North-west Greece). The Roman occupation of Illyria began when the last Illyrian king surrendered the capital to Rome in 168 B.C. By the end of the 1st century B.C., the Romans had conquered all of Illyria.

In the 4th century A.D. the Roman prefecture Illyrium was organized to include a large part of the region north of the Adriatic Sea and much of the Balkan peninsula. Under Roman rule, Illyria enjoyed great prosperity and many roads and towns were built. During the time of the Roman emperor Constantine the people were gradually Christianized into a form of Catholicism with weak ties to the Pope in Rome.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 A.D. a barbarian horde from the north, The Ostogoths, moved in. They were converts to the Arian Doctrine, a form of early Christianity which believed neither in the divinity of Christ nor the crucifixion.

The Ostogoths remained in the country until 535 when emperor Justinian re-conquered it for the Byzantine Empire.

The land was later invaded by barbarian people from the north-east of Europe, the Slavs, and from the east by the Bulgars. By 640, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius finding no one to help him drive the Slavs out, settled them in the south-western part of the Balkans, thereby dispossessing the Illyrians and moving them southward.

The Slavs gradually formed the Slavic states of Serbia, Croatia, Dalmatia and Istria, and became Christianized.

Foreign rule never became fully entrenched in the rugged mountain region of south western Illyria and some of the fierce mountain tribes continued to live in virtual independence. However, from 1014 to 1204, the southern most areas were again under Byzantine rule.

According to scholars in linguistics, the Albanians of today are the only people in Europe and, particularly in the Balkan peninsula, whose language is that of the ancient Illyrians. Albanians are the indigenous continuants of the Illyrian population who were neither ‘Romanized’ nor assimilated by later invaders.

By the mid 7th century, the land of the Illyrians, now referred to as Albania, was reduced by the onslaught of the Slavs to roughly the area between Shkodra in the north to Akarnania in the south and from the coastal area of Durres to include the regions of Kosovo and Monastir in the east and Yanina in the south. The kings of Sicily (Hohenstraufen) invaded and ruled Central Albania from 1271 to 1378 during which time the Serbs also made inroads from the north.

Under the Serbian Stephen Dushan (1331-1355) a large part of Albania was subdued by 1344. The atrocities of the Serbs in Albania led a great number of people to flee to southern Italy.

The refugees in Italy referred to their homeland as “Arbana” and to themselves as “Arbaneshe”. This lends support to the writing of Anna Comnena (1083-1146), daughter of the Byzantine emperor, Alexius I, who recorded in her famous history that the population located behind Durres called themselves “Arbanez”. Perhaps the geographer Ptolemy confused the letters “R” and “L” and wrote “Albana” rather than “Arbana” in his book.

The same conditions that led some groups to flee to Italy, led others to move south to Greece where they formed Albanian communities especially in Macedonia and Thrace.

According to Greek records of the 15th century, these people called themselves “Arvaniti”. As Greeks to the present day always pronounce the letter “B” as “V” this would account for this version of the name.

One of the early Albanian writers of the16th century, Gjon Buzuku, referred to his country as “Arben”. He was also the first to call its language “shqip”. Today Albanians call their country “Shqiperia”-the land of the eagle, and themselves “Shqiptare” – the sons of the eagle.

In 1389 the Ottoman Sultan, Murad I defeated an anti-Ottoman coalition of Hungarians, Bulgarians, Romanians, Poles, Serbs and Albanians at the battle of Kosovo.

Although the Sultan was assassinated by an Albanian named Milosh Kopiliq this bloody defeat opened the way for yet deeper penetration of Albanian territory under Sultan Bayazet – nicknamed “Thunderbolt”. He overran Albania from 1394 to 1396 and occupied it from Gjirokastra in the south to Shkodra in the north, and from its eastern border to Durres on the coast. Albania was to become a Sanjak (flag) of the Ottoman Empire – Sanjaki Arvanid, later Sanjaki Arnaud.

In their literature of the 15th century, the Ottomans refer to Albania as “Arnautluk” – the land of the Arna’uts, and to the Albanians as Arna’ut or Arna’uti.

It seems obvious that these terms are a corruption of the Greek word Arvaniti.

The Arna’uts, as the Ottoman called them, rose against Ottoman rule led by the great national hero Scanderbeg. Although a Muslim, he was first a patriot and so resisted the rule of the Ottoman Turks. Only after his death in 1468 did the Ottomans gain the upper hand – yet their rule was never completely effective.

During the period of Ottoman dominance the majority of Arna’uts converted to the Sunni sect of Islam.

Many distinguished themselves in the services of their Turkish rulers. Arna’uti courage and loyalty led to the Turkish Sultans preferring them to the Janissaries as their royal body guard – in the same way that the roman emperors before them had appointed Illyrians as their praetorian guards.

Like the praetorian guards, the Arna’uts could make or break the ruler. One instance was the re-instating of Sultan Selim III (1789-1807) when the Janissary had removed him to appoint Mustafa IV (1807-1808). Shortly after Selim was murdered by the Janissaries, the Arna’uts succeeded in making his brother a Sultan- Mahmoud II (1809-1839).

The Arna’uts became synonymous with the wild and fearsome mountaineers of the rugged land of Albania. They became the cream of the Ottoman forces and several rose to the level of grand vizir such as Kara Mustafa who conquered the Balkans and laid siege to Vienna in 1683.

They were the descendants of the Illyrians who had excelled in the past as people of the highest integrity, steadfast in their principles. Among them came two great Roman emperors:

Diocletian (296-305)
who divided the empire into four parts to prevent its further disintegration;

and

Constantine the Great (311-337)
who declared Christianity
as the official religion of the Roman empire,

also the great Byzantine emperor

Justinian (527-565)
who compiled and reformed
Roman Law that became the
basis of the laws of the western world

Albanians never became part of the Ottoman melting pot, although there were large cities in the Ottoman Empire that were heavily populated by Muslim Albanians, such as Salonika, Kavalla and the region of Thasallia, all in northern Greece of today.

During the 18th &19th centuries, independent native princes ruled Albania for brief periods. One of the foremost was Ali Pasha of Yanina (1741-1822) who rebelled and fought against the Turks, successfully carving for himself a sizeable area of the Ottoman Empire which he ruled independently of the Turks. He had his capital at Yanina (now in north -west Greece).

His land extended from Durres to the south to include all of the Peloponnese except Attica and east to encompass Thessaly and part of Macedonia.

The English poet Byron visited Albania during this period, and he met and was entertained by Ali Pasha. He wrote that

“the Arna’uts, or Albanese, struck me forcibly by their resemblance to the Highlander of Scotland, in dress, figure and manner of living;[they] have a fine cast of countenance; and the most beautiful women I ever beheld, in stature and in features”

So impressed was he with the country and its inhabitants that he sometimes wore an Albanian costume and his poet friend Shelley nicknamed him “Albi”

As part of his strategy to weaken the Ottoman Empire, Ali Pasha encouraged and subsidized the Greek War of Independence causing Victor Hugo to consider him as “the only man of the age fit to be compared to Napoleon”. It is ironic to note that another Arna’ut -Mohamed Ali of Egypt, was ultimately responsible for suppressing the Greek revolt.

He had been asked by Sultan Mahmoud II (1809-1839) to help defeat the Greek rebels. At first Mohamed Ali was hesitant to take up arms against the Arna’uts and their Greek allies. Then news came that the Greeks had turned on the Arna’uts, who had been living for centuries in various Greek centres, and massacred thousands, burning villages and destroying mosques. In addition, Sultan Mahmoud promised to make Mohamed Ali ruler of Morea (southern Greece of today) in the event of a successful campaign. So Mohamed Ali sent his son Ibrahim, who, like his father, had been born in Kavalla, in northern Greece, to lead his Nizam Jadid (the new order) highly trained Egyptian soldiers, much admired by Ottomans and Europeans alike. Ibrahim quickly succeeded in quelling the rebellion.

Although Ibrahim’s birthplace, Kavalla, was once heavily populated by Arna’uts and had several mosques – nothing remains today except for an equestrian statue of Ibrahim, symbolically placing his sword in its scabbard. In 1846, shortly before Mohamed Ali Pasha died, he visited Kavalla donating money for a school which still stands to this day.

When the Sultan reneged on his promise to Mohamed Ali, a feud broke out between them leading the Pasha to declare total independence from the Ottoman Empire. With his son Ibrahim continuing to lead the army, Mohamed Ali carved out an extensive empire that included : Egypt, Syria, Arabia, Palestine and eastern Anatolia.

The entire Ottoman Imperial army was defeated at the battle of Nazib on June 24, 1839 and the way was open to Istanbul. At this point, the European powers intervened and persuaded Mohamed Ali to make his son withdraw in return for making Egypt an independent country to be ruled by him and his descendants.

And so it was until 1952 when the last of Egypt’s Albanian monarchs-King Farouk-abdicated, ending the dynasty founded by Mohamed Ali in 1805.

There are some interesting comments on the Arna’uts made by Lady Montagu (1689-1762), the wife of the British ambassador to Istanbul. She travelled through Europe to Turkey in 1716 and described her trip through the land of the Arna’ut with the following note on religious practices:

“But of all the religions I have seen, the Arna’ut seem to me the most particular .. these people living between Christians and Mohammedans.. they very prudently follow both and go to the mosque on Fridays, and to the church on Sundays”

Most likely Lady Montagu had been observing the habits of the Bektashi Muslim sect which was introduced to Albania by Bektashi dervishes when they rode with the Ottomans into the Balkans. The founder of this sect, Hadji Bektash, was born in Persia, in 1249, moved to Turkey in 1284 and died there in 1344 at age 90. He revered Christ as equal to Mohamed and both as the true messengers of God. The orthodox Sunni Muslims attacked the Bektashi sect and described it as being “half Muslim, half Christian” but naturally such a religious half-way house held a special appeal for Christian Albanians otherwise reluctant to be converted to Islam.

During his sojourn in Albania, Byron had also noted that:

“the Greeks hardly regard them as Christians,
or the Turks as Muslims;
and in fact they are a mixture of both, and sometimes neither”

Unfortunately, the hatred of Bektashism by the Sunni Turks increased, leading to the decline of the sect to some 200,000 adherents by the end of the 19th century.

Albania persisted in its attempts to regain independence from the Ottomans throughout the last half of the 19th century.

With the help of European powers, Greece, by the 1830s, had already become independent. However, it was in vain that Albania pleaded for support, as none of the European countries even paid lip service to this cause.

Albania unilaterally declared its independence on 28th of November 1912, and the Great Powers of Europe finally recognized Albanian independence from Turkey in principle at the Conference of Ambassadors in London, on the 11th of December 1912. Albania declared its neutrality in all future conflicts in the Balkans at this time.

The following year the conference met again and decided that for this recognition Albania must be deprived of half her territory and population including the regions of Kosovo, Monastir and Yanina.

Subsequently the secret “Treaty of London” in 1915, between England, France, Italy and Russia agreed to the complete dismemberment and partition of Albania to Italy, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro so as not to have an Islamic state in Europe.

Greece and Italy invaded Albania; the former occupied southern Albania, the latter held part of the southern coastal area on the Adriatic.

Encouraged by the Greek and Italian success, the Serbs and Montenegrins invaded northern Albania in 1915.

Reports had been made to the Great Powers the previous year about the atrocities of Serbian troops killing men, women and children in northern Albania especially in the ‘vilayet’ of Kosovo; and it was emphasized that they had been committed in cold blood.

The plan to partition Albania was brought to the Peace Conference of Versailles at the end of World War I.

Debate continued on whether to recognize a tiny autonomous Albanian state. The Albanians had to fight as never before for their very existence as a nation.

Prior to the Peace Conference of Versailles the American President, Woodrow Wilson had convened a Congress of Oppressed Nations in July 1918 in Washington, D.C. and Albania was among the countries represented at the conference that culminated in President Wilson’s issuing his famous “14 Points” on nationhood and self-determination.

At Versailles, Wilson opposed the partition of Albania and threatened that he would not sign the treaty. The final compromise enabled Albania to remain independent but with the borders outlined in the treaty of 1913.

Turkey also suffered tremendously by the loss of all her territory in the Middle East and Europe, except Istanbul; and the notion of the partition of Turkey itself was discussed.

Subsequently, Greek forces landed in Anatolia to establish their territory there.

It would take another Albanian, Mustapha Kemal, born in Macedonia of Albanian parentage, to repel the invader and maintain the integrity of the Turkish border as defined at Versailles. Mustapha Kemal is considered to be the founder of modern Turkey and the people bestowed upon him the title of Ataturk – the father of Turkey

Dolma Tulotsang

TIBET worth saving for humanity
vol 9   2000

In 1949, the People’s Republic of China sent troops to invade the country of Tibet. After ten years of trying tp reach a peaceful resolution with China, the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual and temporal leader, was forced to flee his homeland and seek political asylum in neighboring India.

Nearly 100,000 Tibetans followed the Dalai Lama into exile and thousands, including children, continue to make that treacherous journey over the Himalayas each year in search of refuge. However, for the remaining 5 million Tibetans still in Tibet, there is no escaping China’s deliberate policy of ruthless oppression of the Tibetans.

During the over 40 years of China’s occupation of Tibet:

* 1.2 million Tibetans (one fifth of the country’s population) are dead and many more languished in prisons and labor camps,

* Gross human rights violations – starvation, execution and torture continue to this day and Tibetans are routinely imprisoned for just expressing their views,

* Freedom of religion is severely curtailed,

* Nuns have been brutally raped in Chinese prisons,

* Nearly all of Tibet’s monastries (6,000 of them) and other cultural and historic buildings have been destroyed and their contents pillaged,

* China is encouraging the large-scale settlement of Chinese into Tibet which is overwhelming the Tibetan population in many areas

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile have worked tirelessly to bring the suffering of the Tibetan people under Chinese occupation to the world’s attention.

The Dalai Lama’s efforts as a champion of world peace have been recognized with the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

The Dalai Lama was equally clear in his statement,

“.. there is an attempt to destroy the integral core of the Tibetan civilization and identity. New measures of restrictions in the fields of culture, religion and education, coupled with the unabated influx of Chinese migrants to Tibet amount to a policy of cultural genocide”

Historically, Tibet lies at the centre of Asia, with an area of 2.5 million square kilometers. It is the homeland of six million Tibetans, and it is a separate nation with a distinct culture, religion, language, laws and customs and has maintained its own government.

Tibetan Buddhism is practiced by 99% of the population.

The international community reacted with shock at the events in Tibet.

The issue was discussed on numerous occasions by the UN General Assembly between 1959 and 1965. Three resolutions were passed condemning China’s violations of human rights in Tibet and calling upon China to respect those rights, including Tibet’s right to self-determination.

The Tibetan people’s determination to preserver their heritage and regain their freedom is as strong as ever, even though the situation has led to confrontation in Tibet and to large scale Chinese international propaganda efforts.

In 1987 further deterioration led to open demonstrations against Chinese rule in Lhasa and other major towns.

The Chinese military and civilian build up is also of great concern to India’s direct security.

Tibet had acted for for centuries as a buffer between China and India and the increasing presence of China in the Himalayas will now be affecting many Asian nations as well.

In recent years, and especially since the Nobel Peace Prize award to the Dalai Lama, the concern shown by governments in Europe and America has grown considerably. However, China’s pressure tactics have thwarted efforts to make substantive headway to resolve the issue, and Tibet has continued to pay a terrible price for the world community’s failure to seriously challenge China on its behavior there.

The situation is increasingly tense as thousands of Tibetans continue to be imprisoned merely for their political or religious activities, detainees are being tortured regularly; and Tibetans are rarely permitted to leave the country-and access to Tibet by exiled Tibetans is also limited.

Is there still hope to save Tibet?

Mike Kanellis is a Canadian Dream
vol 9 2000

by the editor

The first time I was introduced to Mike was at another friend’s restaurant – I had only been in Canada a short while myself, so, little did I know that he was the owner of a most prestigious restaurant and the proud and successful realizer of a Canadian dream. He was extremely courteous, very modest and helpful, and did not hesitate at all to support my-at the time-budding Cross Cultures.

Emmanuel ( Mike ) Kanellis came to Canada in 1964, from a southern peninsula of Greece called Peloponnesos. He grew up in a village where his father did mixed farming. He has three sisters and four brothers. Already two of his brothers and a sister had come to Canada when he, just out of military service, was job searching. Realizing the difficulties Mike was having finding work, his brother suggested “why don’t you come over, I’ll take you to a restaurant .. you can get a job washing dishes”

So, the young man came with little more than his hopes, dreams, and willingness to work hard.

Sure enough, he started his first job only four days after arriving . . . washing dishes! Any other job, at a factory or store required a minimum knowledge of English.

He worked twelve hours a day, six days a week and was paid fifty cents an hour, for ten months. Then he moved to another restaurant where he got the opportunity to start cooking and learning to be a chef, he was also teaching himself English.

But most importantly, with his pioneer spirit, he set the plan to realizing a dream.

Mike came with an open mind, to learn and to work hard “the people are polite and eager to help you even if you don’t speak English, they go to every effort to try to understand”.

At first he had to memorize the menu, and watch the Chef very closely, “learning a lot, from A to Z”.  Meanwhile he was economizing, in every possible way he knew how to, in order to put money aside.

He had earlier realized that Canada was full of opportunities, and he planned to work hard to move up from the sink to brighter horizons.

As Mike moved from full-time Chef, to managing the entire operation, observing every detail, and formulating his own way of handling matters and viewing prospects of growing and improving the business, he soon was ready to be an owner, and the opportunity presented itself from one of his previous employers, who approached him offering to sell him his restaurant.

Mike was now 27 years old, and had only been in Canada for four years, but he was ready to take the new challenge .. and although he ran that place for nine years, he constantly faced a problem with parking space, so it was natural that when he found an advertisement for his current location (14,000 sq.ft), he overlooked the concerns of some skeptics regarding its history. Offering top quality service and food at excellent prices has kept people coming back for more!

Mike now shares his pride, as well as most details of his Golf’s Steak House and Seafood with three sons, Tom, George and Gus, who work with him.

Mike still works a double shift almost every week, he checks on everything, all the time, and you will only find him in his office early in the morning or late at night, otherwise he is attending to his customers, and making sure everyone is satisfied.

To work so hard one must also rest hard. Mike enjoys travelling .. “I’d like to visit all those places I learnt about in school”, and of course he does return to Greece often

Nadia H Sabry
winner of the 1997
Society of Plastics Engineers’
International Wonders of Plastics
Essay Contest

Judy E. Grimson, P.Eng.,
President SPE Ontario Section (96-98)

The Ontario Section of the Society of Plastics Engineers is pleased to announce that Nadia Hesham Sabry has won 1997’s Society of Plastics Engineers International Wonders of Plastics Essay Contest. Nadia, an OAC student at Preston High School in Cambridge, Ontario has won $1000 US, plus an additional $1,000 US for her school. Her winning essay, entitled: Plastic-It’s All Around Us will be published in Plastics Engineering, SPE’s official publication which is read by approximately 40,000 plastics professionals around the world.

This is the first year that the contest has been run in Ontario. The contest began five years ago in memory of Jonathan Bindman, a past president of SPE’s New York Section. Open to all high school students, the 500-1,000 word essay must be sponsored by a teacher and must focus on the benefits of plastics. There is no way of knowing how many essays were actually written.

Only the best essay from each school was submitted to SPE for judging. Of the eight essays received by the Ontario Section, Nadia’s essay was chosen as the local winner.

Her essay was sent to compete with winning essays from 30 other sections. Again it was chosen as the best essay submitted at the SPE International level.

The Society of Plastics Engineers is a non-profit international organization dedicated to promoting the scientific and engineering knowledge relating to plastics.

All members are associated with the plastics industry in some way, whether in manufacturing of raw materials, processing, packaging, design of plastic products, mold making, research, or sales and marketing. The 1,000 members of the Ontario Section reside and work in Ontario, and are involved with either injection molding or extrusion processes. Worldwide, there are 92 Sections and 21 Divisions, which focus on the development of knowledge in one particular segment of the plastics industry. SPE members choose to belong to the Division most closely related to their occupation.

In the past, it was thought that plastics are harmful to the environment, and are depleting our oil reserves .. in fact, plastics require less energy to manufacture, are made from by-products of the petroleum industry and are almost completely recyclable. Plastic is truly the material of the future!

M Darrol Bryant is a professor of Religion and Culture at Renison College, University of Waterloo. His wife, Susan Hodges Bryant, is a part-time English lecturer a the same College. Darrol, Susan and two of their children, Lucas 15, and Emma 12, were on sabbatical in 1993-94, travelling to different religious communities in India, Sri-Lanka and Kenya. Dr Bryant’s research was centered on seeking to understand the religious practices, convictions, life and attitudes towards other faiths within those communities. The following appeared as a sequel in Cross Cultures magazine

Isa Jesus ? A Muslin-Christian Dialogue
Vol 7 1998

I. Introduction

In the Globe and Mail, one of Canada’s leading newspapers, on April 29, 1995 there was a special report on Islam written by its Middle East Bureau Correspondent, Patrick Martin, entitled “Islam: The Children of Allah”. It opened by quoting the Secretary-General of NATO, Willy Claes, saying that “the radical Islamic movement” is “the greatest treat to the West since communism” and wondered if NATO should “intervene to prevent it spreading any further”. It then went on to discuss “Islam, The Children of Allah” wholly in terms of some newer “radical” movements within the Muslim world. I found this alarming. This caricature of Islam-as-terrorism is not only inaccurate, it engenders hostility towards Islam. It does not reflect the truth of the Muslim world and its peoples who know that Islam is rooted in peace, that peace that comes from submission to Allah. But the appalling statement by the NATO Secretary-General is unfortunately all too characteristic of Western attitudes towards the great faith and tradition of Islam. It is rooted in a long history of perverse caricature of Islam within Christianity and the West and rests in a pervasive ignorance concerning Islam itself. Such statements only underline the need and necessity for new understandings of Islam in the West and the importance of inagurating a new history in the relations of Muslims and Christians.

Something of a possibility of a new history of relations between Muslims and Christians is beginning to emerge in the post-World War II efforts of Muslims and Christians to enter into dialogue with one another. While misunderstanding and religious antagonism still persists and is at the root of many encounters between Muslims and Christians, we have also seen efforts at dialogue between these two communities. In 1989, for example, Stuart Brown edited a volume entitled Meeting in Faith that documented twenty years of Muslim-Christian dialogue sponsored by the World Council of Churches [1]. But this movement is still small.

There are a host of important topics that need to be addressed so that Muslims and Christians might better understand one another. These two traditions make up more that fifty percent of the world’s religious population, but the relations betweem the traditions have seldom been positive. And it is imperative, as I’ve argued elsewhere, that the long history of mutual antagonism between Muslims and Christians, relieved by some wonderful moments of more positive relations, be overcome [1a].

In this essay I seek to focus on an issue that has surprisingly not been much addressed in the meetings of Muslims and Christians. This is the issue of Jesus in Islam and Christianity. Indeed, this is a topic which will challenge the very limits of dialogue.

Our topic is fraught with unusual difficulties. Neal Robinson in his study of Christ in Islam and Christianity [2] indicates that this topic has been burdened by polemical – – “you are wrong” – – and apologetic – – “I am right” – – attitudes over the 13 centuries of Christian-Muslim relations. Christians have impugned the Quran and its Prophet and disputed its portrait of Jesus, while Muslims have repeatedly charged and sought to establish that Christians betray the Oneness of God. And so there have been dramatic fireworks of antagonism between Muslims and Christians on this issue, but little of the warm glow of understandings between these “People of the Book”

Before turning to our topic, it is necessary to make clear something of the nature of interfaith encounter and dialogue [3]

The possibility of a new meeting of Muslims and Christian will depend on our ability to meet in dialogue rather than debate. It will require a spirit of mutual openness and respect rather than defensiveness. It will require a willingness to hear each other as they bear witness to their experience of God in their own terms. Interfaith dialogue is a new, post World War II possibility/development in the history of relations between people of different faiths. The purpose of dialogue in the meeting of men and women of different faiths is mutual respect and understanding [4]. This must be clearly understood. The point is that in our dialogue we should not make our first concern to prove that the Christian view of Jesus is the right one and that the Muslim view of Isa is wrong, or that the Muslim view is right and the Christian wrong. Our first task is to hear one another aright, to listen long and deeply. It is this listening that will allou us to move towards mutual understanding of one another’s faith. In the encounter and dialogue between Islam and Christianity, there are many different things that will emerge. Sometimes that dialogue may lead to mutual agreement but at others it may result in a deepened awareness of profound differences. In focusing on Jesus, we are entering an area of dialogue that will probably not lead to mutual agreement since this in a matter on which there is profound and probably unbridgeable difference. But hopefully it will issue in some increase in mutual understanding, and erase some of the misunderstandings on this issue that too much cloud Muslim-Christian relations.

With these preliminary remarks, then, let me turn to our topic. And in doing so I want to place over my discussion these words from the Holy Quran:

“Say: “O People of the Book! Come now to a word common between us and you, that we worship none but God, and that we associate no others with Him, and that some of us do not take others as lords, apart from God” (Surah 3:64) [5]

II. Jesus in Christianity

II. A. The Scriptures
Let me begin with Jesus in Christianity. This will necessarily be brief and schematic given the limitations of space. But we want to look at Jesus in the Christian Scriptures, in early Christian literature, and in the Ecumenical Creeds.

The Christian Scriptures are not contemporaneous with the life and ministry of Jesus. They were written after Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection. The earliest books of the New Testament were the writings of Paul, followed by the Gospels. But these writings contained the conviction that was central to the early Christian community, namely, that Jesus was the Messiah, the “annointed of God”. The term “messiah” and means, in Hebrew, “annointed” and is the equivalent of the Greek “Christos”. In the Jewish tradition, there were a variety of beliefs that surrounded the term “Messiah”. But the most common was to link the “Messiah” to a restoration of the Davidic kingship. (See A. Richardson, A Theological Wordbook, p. 44) Contemporary biblical scholarship points out that Jesus does not, in the synoptic gospels, use this word to describe himself. It is clear that Messiah comes to be used in a special way in the developing Christian tradition. But here we want to begin with its more traditional meaning as, simply, “annointed”

In the Gospels, then, Jesus emerges as the one who stands in the synagogue in his home town of Nazareth and reads from the Prophet Isaiah: “‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.’ And he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant . . . and he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4: 18-21) [6]. Thus, according to Luke, began Jesus’ ministry. For the early Christians, then, Jesus was the long awaited Messiah and they heard and saw his ministry within the context of their Jewish world. He was “the anointed One”

Seen in this context, then, Jesus had a short ministry of one to three years. He gathered around himself a small group of disciples and followers including Peter, James, John and Mary Magdalene. He spoke in words that often astounded; he spoke with authority. In Matthew’s Gospel we find the “Sermon on the Mount” where Jesus said”, “‘You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy’. But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven . . .” (Matt. 5:43-45) He often spoke in parables. In Mark we read Him saying, “‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs . . . with many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it . . .” (Mark 4:

30-33) He prayed to God – – often using the distinctive term “Abba” or “Father” to address God, as in the Lord’s Prayer that begins “Our Father, who art in heaven . . .” and he sought continually to do God’s Will.

This Jesus was also a healer. Many came to him and he healed many. Once in a crowd a woman touched Jesus’ garment and he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease” (Mark 5:34) But he is a healer not only of physical illness, but also of spiritual affliction. To the Samaritan woman at the well he offered “a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). He was a voice of wisdom.

According to the Christian scriptures, Jesus’ life and ministry began to attract opposition. There were those who felt Jesus had blasphemed against the Way of tradition and the prophets, others that he was fomenting rebellion against Roman authorities. And it was in this setting that Jesus comes to Jerusalem for the last time. After, according to the Christian scriptures, a triumphant entry into the city, he is betrayed by Judas, one of his disciples. Jesus is then put to death by the Roman authorities. According to the Christian Scriptures, Jesus is raised from the dead by God, meets Mary Magdalene at the Tomb (John 20) and the disciples on the road to Emmaus who know Him ‘in the breaking of bread,’ (Luke 24). And after some time with his followers in his “Resurrected Body” (which is not a resuscitated corpse), Jesus then ascends into Heaven, is taken up into life with God [7].

For the early Christians, the resurrection is a surprise and a confirmation of Jesus’ messiahship. It is evidence that in Jesus Christ a mighty work of God was being unfolded. Likewise, Jesus’ miracles are not evidence of Jesus’ divinity, but that God was present to Jesus in a profound way. The Synoptic Gospels present Jesus as a wholly human Messiah, but the picture shifts in the Gospel of John. In John we find the crucial passages that begin to link Jesus in a very special way to the Heavenly Father. Within the Christian scriptures themselves we can see the emergence of the distinctive Christian convictions concerning Jesus. The Apostle Paul, for example, articulates this special work of God as “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself . . .” (II Cor. 5:19). And according to the Resurrected Christ, the disciples are given the Great Commission in the Gospel of Matthew, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit . . .” (Mt. 28:19). Thus, for Christians, Jesus is not only a Teacher and a Messiah but he is also, as Peter writes, “our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (II Peter 1:11)

My point here is that Jesus in the Christian scriptures is presented as the Messiah who is related to God in some remarkably special way. What is the appropriate way to answer the question of who Jesus was? Should he be seen as a Jewish Rabbi or Teacher? a charismatic Healer? a first century Prophet? the incarnate Word of God? The answer to this question is not a straight forward historical one. It is rather always answered in relation to the religious and theological convictions that one holds.

II. B. Jesus in the Early Christian Writers:
As I indicated before, the Scriptures of the first generation of Christians was the Jewish Bible. Though the letters of Paul and the Gospels circulated among the small communities of Christians, it was only in the late second century that the Christian Bible was in the form that we now know it. Thus in the early Christian writings (as well as Scripture) we can see how the Christian ways of speaking of Jesus were developing and growing. In, for example, the writings of Clement c. 100, “Jesus” is spoken of as “our Lord Jesus Christ” (p.43) and Clement affirms that we have “one God, one Christ, one Spirit of Grace” (p. 65) Ignatius of Antioch c. 110 speaks of the “New Man Jesus Christ” and the “one physician – – of flesh yet spiritual, born yet unbegotten, God incarnate, genuine life in the midst of death, sprung from Mary as well as God . . . – – Jesus Christ our Lord” (p. 90). Jesus Christ is, Ignatius writes, the one in whom “we shall get to God” (p.94). Polycarp (c.70-155) speaks of our destiny to “believe in our Lord Jesus Christ and in ‘his Father who raised him from the dead”. And Justin Martyr (c. 150) speaks of “that Christ” who “is the First-begotten of God” and “the Reason/Logos of which every race of man partakes” (p. 272) [8]

In these ways of speaking about Jesus, we see the development and growth of early gentile Christian understanding of Jesus as the Christ. Jesus as the Christ is emerging in Christian self-understanding and experience as more than, we might say, the historical Jesus. Increasingly, Christians are coming to see that Jesus is related to God in some special manner such that in Jesus Christ we meet, see, are led to, encounter God. This is already signaled in John’s Gospel when we read in John 1:1-4, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men”. It was then a process involving Christian experience of the Risen Christ and continued discernment of his life and message that led the majority of the early Christian community to the formulation, in the Ecumenical Creeds of Christianity, of the doctrines of the incarnation and the trinity, two doctrines that have been especially troubling in the relations between the Muslim and Christian worlds.

Thus the orthodox Christian Creeds that were to emerge are not a simple reflection of the historical life of Jesus of Nazareth, they are rather a symbol of the developing Christian belief that in Jesus a divine work unfolded that related Jesus to God in a special way.

II.C. Jesus in the Early Ecumenical Creeds
The Ecumenical Creeds of Christianity emerged after the social status of Christianity was dramatically transformed. Prior to 316, Christianity had been an outlaw religion and was subject to seasons of persecution. After 312, Christianity was tolerated and in 325, Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Empire. And it was the Emperor who called the lst Ecumenical Council at his summer palace at Nicea in 325. From this Council emerged the symbol that was to mark the orthodox Christian confession: “in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father as only begotten, that is, from the essence of the Father, God from God, Light from Light . . .” (30, Creeds) And later in 381 at the Council Constantinople, we got this formula: “the only-begotten Son of God, begotten from the Father before all time, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not created, of the same essence as the Father, through Whom all things came into Being” (33, Creeds). Then in 451, we have the Council of Chalcedon which affirmed that “the one and Only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ . . . is perfect both in deity (theoteti) and also in human-ness (anthropoteti) . . . (Creeds, 35)” [9]. These are the formulas that stand at the heart of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, a doctrine that Muslims find compromises the absolute Singleness of God and that, it must be acknowledged, many Christians find incomprehensible. These doctrines were originally formulated in the language and assumptions of ancient Greek thought. And while they may be difficult to understand, they wish to affirm that Jesus as the Logos/Word is connected to God, is of God, in some very special way.

When these credal formulations are then used to re-read Scripture they lead to much confusion. How can the Jesus who seeks to do God’s will and prays to the Father that the cup of the crucifixion be removed, be “very God of very God?” Christians often gloss over this logical impossibility. They/we should acknowledge that the Christian witness to Jesus as the Incarnate Word is a religious/theological affirmation we have come to rather than a reflection of the historical ministry of Jesus.

This brief review of Jesus in Scripture, early Christian writings and the early Creeds should make us aware that the orthodox Christian understanding of Jesus as the Christ is quite complex. The anointed One or Messiah of the Synoptic Gospels becomes the “begotten from the Father before all time” of the Council of Nicea. Yet Christians want to affirm the full humanity of Jesus and thus we get these paradoxical formulations of the Creeds. Early Christian thinkers believed that the doctrine of the Trinity was necessary precisely in order to preserve the Unity of God not to compromise that conviction. But can that claim, difficult enough for Christians to grasp, even be heard within the Muslim world?

III. Isa in the Qur’an and Islam

It is important to be aware that our topic is not simply Jesus in Christianity but also Isa in the Quran and in Islam. This larger heading means that we should not restrict this dialogue to the Scriptural sources, but look more broadly within the Way of Islam as it has unfolded over the centuries. When the Prophet Muhammad burst unto the scene, Christianity was already more than 500 years old. It had moved through its formative stages and had come to its orthodox articulations in the early ecumenical Creeds of the Christian Church. But the attempts of historians to determine if Muhammad had any links to the Christian community and how well he knew it have not been very successful, though there are some intriguing suggestions that Jewish Christians in the Arabian peninsula may have always resisted the “ecumenical formulations” and maintained beliefs more consonant with what we find in the Quran. But such historical investigations do not get us to the heart of the question; they are not necessary. Since the heart of the Prophet’s Message is that “There is no God, but God” and that that is exemplified in the Quran, it is here that we must first look to see the Islamic Way.

And that means we must turn to the Quran. For Muslims, the Quran is a sacred scripture unlike any other. It is the “standing miracle;” it is, Muslims believe, the direct communication of Allah to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel. It is not, as in the Christian Scripture, a witness to God or to God’s Word, but it is the very WORD OF GOD. The nature and status of the Quran is a question for the dialogue of Muslims and Christians, but it is not one we can pursue here. But we have to at least note the difference between Muslims and Christians in regard to the status of their sacred scriptures. (And the differences among Muslims and among Christians too, but that is another story). Christians, by and large, do not understand their Scriptures as the Muslims, by and large, regard the Quran. While Christian affirm that Jesus is the Word of God, to which the Scriptures bear witness, Muslims use this same formula – – the Word of God – – to describe the Quran [10].

It comes as a surprise to most Christians to discover the honour given to Isa in Islam and the Quran. Most Christians are simply unaware that Muslims regard Isa as a Messanger and Prophet. The Quran accords Isa, within its perspective, the highest honour. Isa is a “Prophet” within the great tradition that now culminates in Muhammad. Isa’s dignity lies in the fact that he was chosen by Allah to proclaim God’s Message in his own time and to his people. Surah 2: 136 reads, “We believe in God and that which is revealed to us; in what was revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the tribes; to Moses and Jesus and the other prophets by their Lord. We make no distinction among any of them and to God we have surrendered ourselves” [11]. (Dawood) Sometimes this respect for Isa is combined with a criticism of certain teachings concerning Isa. For example, “People of the Book, do not transgress the bounds of your religion. Speak nothing but the truth about Allah. The Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, was no more than Allah’s apostle and his Word . . . so believe in Allah and his apostles and do not say “three”. Allah is but one God. Allah forbid that He should have a son !” (Surah 4:171 in Kung article) [12] (or in Chittick’s trans”. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only the Messenger of God, and His Word that He committed to Mary, and a Spirit from Him. So have faith in God and His messengers, and do not say, “Three” Refrain; better it is for you. God is only One God”) [13]

William Chittick in his Vision of Islam makes a crucial point when he writes that “Muslims see other religions in terms of Islam, which in their eyes is the perfect religion. Of course, followers of other religions also look from their own perspective; this is not a quality unique to Muslims” [13a] Indeed, it is not unique to Muslims, but this fact also helps us to pose the problem that Muslims and Christians face at this point, namely, can we see the understanding of Jesus/Isa that emerges in the sacred scriptures of the two traditions in the other’s terms?

Isa is, in the Quran, miraculously born of the Virgin Mary, and he proclaims with the Prophets the eternal Message that there is “No God but God”. The Quran denies the Crucifixion, but affirms that Isa is taken directly into Heaven by God. Kenneth Cragg summarizes the Qur’anic picture of Jesus in the following words, “”I have come unto you with a sign from your Lord. I create for you out of clay the likeness of a bird, I breathe into it and by God’s permission it is a bird. I heal the blind and the leper and I raise the dead by God’s permission and I proclaim unto you what you may eat and what you may store up in your houses” (3:37 esp) . . . Christ is, then, a prophet, a teacher, a healer of the sick, a spirit from or of God. To him is given the Gospel–not the good news about God in Christ, but a book of words or preaching, which the Qur’an does not anywhere reproduce . . .” [13b] such a portrayal of Isa is in line with the Qur’anic view of the Prophet as a Messenger of God but is very different from the salvic role of Jesus in the Christian Scriptures.

Dr. Badu Kateregga well summarizes the traditional Muslim view when he says, “Muslims have great respect and love for Jesus (Isa) the Messiah. He is one of the greatest prophets of Allah. To deny the prophethood of Jesus is to deny Islam . . . on the other hand, Muslims are genuinely opposed to the belief by Christians that Isa (PBUH) was Divine or ‘Son of God’ . . . this is the point where Muslims and Christians painfully part company. The issue is deeply theological and anthropological. The Christian view of incarnation seems to compromise God’s transcendence and sovereignty while at the same time exalting a mere man to God-like status . . . The gulf between Christians and Muslims is further widened by the Christian silence on and non-recognition of Muhammad (PBUH) as the Seal of Prophets, and the final guidance (the Quran) that was revealed to him by God” [14] we will have to let these few words on Isa in the Quran and the brief summary by Kateregga stand.

Does the Quranic view of Isa mean that Muslims must automatically reject Christian views of Jesus that relate Jesus as the Word of God to the “Trinity”? While it would seem so, there are some Muslims who see the issue in a more nuanced way. Seyyed H. Nasr, for example, allows that “Islam would accept an interpretation of the Trintiy which would not in any way compromise Divine Unity, one which would consider the persons of the Trinity to be “Aspects” or “Names” of God standing below His Essence . . .” [14a]. But this would lead us into a much longer discussion than is possible here. Here our brief look at Isa in the Qur’an and Islam should lead us to see that Isa is perceived in profoundly different terms – – those of prophet and messenger – – than the Jesus of the Christian scriptures. And now we will turn briefly to some almost concluding points, beginning with the conflicts.

IV. Points of Conflict

Even from this brief review, it is obvious that the issue of Jesus/Isa in Islam and Christianity is a controversial, complex and troubling one, touching issues that are at the very heart of the respective faiths. From this brief presentation of Jesus in Christianity and Isa in Islam there emerges three areas of clear difference. Each is too big to handle here. So my comments will be brief.

First, the very accounts of Jesus/Isa that we find in the Christian Scriptures and in the Quran clearly differ with one another in terms of the very events of Jesus’ life and ministry. At the heart of those differences is the issue, from the Christian side, of the death and resurrection of Jesus and, from the Muslim side, the issue of Isa’s status as a Prophet and as fully human.

Second, we find clear and perhaps irreconcilable differences in the interpretations of Jesus in Christianity and Islam. Most Christians have affirmed that Jesus is the Incarnate Word of God, the second Person of the Trinity. But not all Christians either historically or especially today hold this faith. If there is going to be any mutual understanding, it will be imperative for Christians to clarify the meaning of the doctrines of the incarnation and trinity since Christians that hold these doctrines do not believe that they deny the Unity and Oneness of God. Muslims seem often to hear Christian talk of the “Son of God” in literal terms that Christians should also reject. Likewise, I often find myself agreeing with the Quran in its criticisms of certain Christian formulations. Christians do not teach, for example, that God is “Three”. God is always and only One God. Nor, properly speaking, is it right to speak of “Jesus (the historical figure) as God” as many Christians do. And Muslims rightly see that the Christian way of speaking of Jesus as “Son of God” and of the Trinity are often more opaque than enlightening.

Muslims, on the other hand, interpret Isa as a “Prophet/Messenger”. This is an important witness to Jesus that Christians should, in my view, take much more seriously than they have up until now. Christians should be quick to agree that Jesus’ intention was to bear witness to God, the Creator of all. As the lawyer asked Jesus, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:36-37). It is God that we are called to Remember, to Heed, to Worship and none other. On this point Muslims and Christians should find themselves in agreement.

Thirdly, in the midst of the conflict and difference over Jesus/Isa stands the issue of the Quran as “the Word of God” and the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). While Muslims accept the Christian Scriptures, though with some theological qualifications, and accept Isa as a Messenger of God, there is no reciprosity from Christians concerning the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad. Christians have, by and large, rejected the Quran as spurious and caricatured the status of the Prophet. We Christians have misnamed the faith of Islam as Mohammadenism until recently and even now only some Christians have gotten it right. So, it is imperative, if we are to proceed in dialogue, that Christians reexamine and reassess their views of the Quran and the Prophet. I can just speak for myself when I say that I have read the Quran and I have great respect for its clear witness to God. I also respect the Prophet as a Messenger though perhaps not in the same way as Muslims do. But then it would be wrong to expect that out of dialogue I would become a Muslim, anymore than that I would expect Muslims to become Christians [15]. That is not the point. But it is to the point that we should advance through dialogue towards deepened respect for one another and our respective Ways to Allah/God.

The story of Muslim Christian encounter in relation to Jesus/Isa has largely been one of missing one another. While Christians have sought to witness to their belief that Jesus is the incarnate Word of God, Muslims have witnessed to their conviction that Isa is a Prophet. When these two beliefs concerning Jesus meet they seldon produce mutual understanding. We could, however, move in that direction if we were to realize that while we may not agree we can at least attempt to hear the other in their witness to Jesus/Isa in their own terms.

We will perhaps begin to move in that direction when Christians and Muslims meet in a spirit that reflects the text from the Quran I quoted at the outset: “Say: “O People of the Book! Come now to a word common between us and you, that we worship none but God . . .” This we can only do as we move beyond the polemical and apologetic attitudes that have characterized Muslim-Christian meeting in the past and begin to meet each other anew in a spirit of dialogue. In that new attitude of dialogue we must seek to understand that faith that leads the Muslim to find their way to God through the Prophet and the Quran and the Christian to find their way to God in Jesus as the Christ.

Jesus is spoken of in many different ways in the New Testament: “Son of Man”, “Lord Jesus Christ”, “Rabbi”, the “Messiah”. And while the earliest Christian community spoke of him as Lord, it was only in the 3rd and 4th centuries that there emerged the classical Credal statements about Jesus.

It is in this context that their emerged the doctrines that affirm that Jesus is the “Incarnate Word of God” and “the 2nd Person of the Trinity”

In this dialogue then it will be necessary to
1. be clear about dialogue,
2. unmask the misunderstandings that have often hindered the meeting of Muslims and Christians,
3. show respect for each other in the meeting of different faiths,

Some relevant Quranic verses:

“Every nation has its messenger” (10:47)

“We have sent no messenger save with the tongue of his people” (14:4)

“To every one of you [messengers] We have appointed a right way and an open road” (5:48)

“Say: We have faith in God, and in that which has been sent down on Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, and Jacob, and the Tribes, and that which was given to Moses and Jesus and the prophets by their Lord. We make no distinction among any of them, and to Him we have submitted” (2:136)

“And when Jesus son of Mary said, “Children of Israel, I am indeed God’s messenger to you, confirming the Torah that has gone before me . . .” (61:6)

“He has sent down upon thee the Book with the truth, confirming what was before it, and He sent down the Torah and the Gospel aforetime, as guidance to the people” (3:3)

“And those messengers – – some We have preferred above others. Among them was he to whom God spoke, and He raised some in degrees. And We gave Jesus son of Mary the clear explications and We confirmed him with the Holy Spirit” (2:253)

“Those who say, ‘God is the third of three’ have become truth-concealers” (5:73)

*** “Say: “O People of the Book! Come now to a word common between us and you, that we worship none but God, and that we associate no others with Him, and that some of us do not take others as lords, apart from God” (3:64)

Sources:

Neal Robinson, Christ in Islam & Christianity, The Representation of Jesus in the Quran and the Classical Muslim Commentaries, London: Macmillan, 1991

Kenneth Cragg, The Call of the Minaret, 2nd edition, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985

“To hold back from the fullest meeting with Muslims would be to refrain from the fullest discipleship to Christ” p. 164

“”I have come unto you with a sign from your Lord. I create for you out of clay the likeness of a bird, I breathe into it and by God’s permission it is a bird. I heal the blind and the leper and I raise the dead by God’s permission and I proclaim unto you what you may eat and what you may store up in your houses” (3:37 esp) This bare and somewhat enigmatic statement is almost all the Quran knows of the ministry of Jesus in the Gospels and of his parables . . . Christ is, then, a prophet, a teacher, a healer of the sick, a spirit from or of God. To him is given the Gospel–not the good news about God in Christ, but a book of words or preaching, which the Qur’an does not anywhere reproduce . . .” (pp. 233-234)

Badru Kateregga & David Shenk, Islam & Christianity, A Muslim and a Christian in Dialogue, Nairobi: Uzima Press, 1980

pp. 131-132 “Muslims have great respect and love for Jesus (Isa) the Messiah. He is one of the greatest prophets of Allah. To deny the prophethood of Jesus is to deny Islam . . . on the other hand, Muslims are genuinely opposed to the belief by Christians that Isa (PBUH) was Divine or ‘Son of God’ . . . this is the point where Muslims and Christians painfully part company. The issue is deeply theological and anthropological. The Christian view of incarnations seems to compromise God’s transcendence and sovereignty while at the same time exalting a mere man to God-like status . . . the gulf between Christians and Muslims is further widened by the Christian silence on and non-recognition of Muhammad (PBUH) as the Seal of Prophets, and the final guidance (the Quran) that was revealed to him by God”

The Vision of Islam, Sachiko Murata & William Chittick, New York: Paragon House, 1995

p. 173-174 “The Koranic depiction of the role of prophets in human history is highly nuanced. On the basis of the Koranic text, we can neither claim that Islam has exclusive rights to the truth nor that other religions are valid without qualification. Rather, all prophets have come with the truth from God, but their followers do not always observe the teachings that the prophets brought. Hence, the Koran frequently criticizes the followers of the two religions with which the early Muslim community had contact, Judaism and Christianity. It maintains that many Jews and Christians have not lived up to God’s message to them, a point that has been made by Jewish and Christian reformers throughout history . . . There is, in short, no consensus among contemporary or past Muslims on the issue of Islam and other religions”

p. 174 “The key issue here, as should be obvious by now, is faith in God. In the Islamic view, faith in God demands tawhid, and tawhid is the message of all the prophets”

p. 174 “Even an elementary knowledge of any Christian catechism tells us that God is not “the third of three”. Rather, God is one and three at the same time. Inasmuch as he is three, he present himself to his creatures as three persons – – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”

p. 179 “Muslims see other religions in terms of Islam, which in their eyes is the perfect religion. Of course, followers of other religions also look from their own perspective; this is not a quality unique to Muslims. Hence, Muslims expect other religions to have a book like the Koran and the Koran provides every reason for them to do so by referring to the Torah and the Gospel. But note that the Koran mentions Gospel in the singular, not in the plural. It states repeatedly that Jesus, God’s messenger, was given the Gospel as his message, just as Muhammad was given the Koran”

Story of two Iranian scholars discussing question of “who goes to paradise?” “Well, it is very simple”. “First, all religions other than Islam are obviously false, so we can exclude them”. That leaves Islam. But some are Sunnis and some are Shi’ites and we know that Sunnis have strayed from the straight path, so that excludes them. But among the Shi’ites there are the common folk and ulama. Everyone knows that the common folk don’t care about God so they will burn in the fire. That leaves the ulama. But we know that they became ulama to lord it over the common folk, so we have to exclude them. That leaves you and I and I’m not to sure about you”. (adapted p. 180)

For a good introduction to Islam see Frederick Mathewson Denny, An Introduction to Islam, New York: Macmillan Publ.Co. 1985

1. Stuart E. Brown, Meeting in Faith, Geneva: WCC Publications, 1989. According to this volume, the most troubling and divisive religious and theological differences between the two traditions have not, unfortunately, been addressed. See also Issues in Christian-Muslim Relations, Ecumenical Considerations, Geneva: Office on Inter-Religious Relations, 1992
1a. See M. Darrol Bryant, “Overcoming History: On the Possibilities of Muslim-Christian Dialogue,” Hamdard Islamicus, Vol. XVII, No. 2., Summer, 1994, pp. 5-15

2. Neal Robinson, Christ in Islam and Christianity, London: Macmillan, 1991. Robinson notes that like Muhammad, “the Qur’anic Jesus is called a ‘prohet’ (nabi), a ‘messenger’ (rasul) and a ‘servant’ (abd) of God. Like him too he is to said to have been sent as a ‘mercy’ (rahma). He received a revelation called ‘the Gospel’ just as Muhammad subsequently received the Quran . . . its central thrust was identical with the central thrust of the Qur’an – – the summons to serve and worship God” (p. 37). See also Kenneth Cragg, Jesus and the Muslim, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985, who characterizes current Muslim attitudes in this way: “Through all we have reviewed there runs a great tenderness for Jesus, yet a sharp dissociation from his Christian dimensions. Islam registers a profound attraction but condemns its Christian interpretation. Jesus is the theme at once of acknowledgement and disavowal” (p. 278)

3. Two points need to be made at the outset. First, I participate in this dialogue as a Christian, and a student/scholar of religion and culture, who is deeply committed to dialogue with people of other faiths. I am not an expert on Islam. My knowledge of Islam is limited, indeed meagre, given the glorious history of this remarkable faith. But I have been able to meet many Muslims over the last twenty years. I have been a Visiting Scholar in the Indian Institute of Islamic Studies in New Delhi on two sabbaticals. And I have prayed in mosques in India and Turkey. [I have met Muslims from Indonesia, Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Morocco, Iran, and the former Soviet Union as well as Canada and the USA. These experiences and conversations have supplimented and enriched my reading about, and understanding of, the faith and tradition of Islam. They have made me aware that not all Muslims speak in the same tone, nor do they all hold exactly the same things. This is also true of Christianity. Indeed, I suspect that some of my strongest critics this evening will be fellow Christians who will feel that I have not got this or that right]. But I do think it is important that you understand that I am not an expert on Islam but I am trying to hear it and to understand this great tradition of faith aright. I ask to be corrected when I fail to do so.

Second, I do not speak Arabic, nor Hebrew, nor Greek. Thus I am not an expert on the sacred text of Islam, the Holy Quran, nor am I an expert on the Christian Scriptures either the Old or New Testaments. Thus I have been able to read and to study these scriptures only in translation. This is an especial problem in relation to Islam where, traditionally, there has been a pervasive conviction that the Quran is not to be translated, but only read in its original Arabic. And after pouring over different translations of the Quran I know what a real problem translation is since different translators translate the same texts in widely different ways. I have mainly used the “new revised edition” of The Holy Qur’an translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. But I have also consulted the translations of N. J. Dawood, The Koran, (Penguin), Pickthall’s The Meaning of the Glorious Koran, and the excerpts translated in R. Zakaria, Muhammad & the Quran, and William Chittick & Sachiko Murata, The Vision of Islam. The differences in translation are certainly striking and sometimes convey very different meanings.

4. See M. Darrol Bryant, Religion in a New Key, New Delhi: Wiley Eastern Ltd., 1992

5. Ali translation

6. The texts quoted from the New Testament are from the Revised Standard Version

7. The new quest for the historical Jesus has resulted in some important perspectives on Jesus. See Marcus Borg, Jesus: A New Vision, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987

8. These quotes are all from the writings gathered in the Early Christian Fathers, Library of Christian Classics, Vol. I. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1953

9. See John Leith, ed., Creeds of the Christian Churches, Garden City, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1963

10. This difference between Christians and Muslims in relation to the “Word of God” is explored in “The Christological Morphology of the Doctrine of the Qur’an”, in M. Darrol Bryant, ed., Pluralism, Tolerance and Dialogue: Six Studies, Waterloo: University of Waterloo Press, 1989, pp. 77-98. I am also aware that some fundamentalist Christians do speak of the Bible as the “Word of God” in ways very similar to how Muslims speak of the Qur’an as the “Word of God”. But even here the agency of revelation is, in the Christian case, the inspired writers rather than the direct transmission to the Prophet. For good introductions to Islam see W. Chittick & Sachiko Murata, The Vision of Islam, New York: Paragon, 1995. Also useful is Frederick Denny, An Introduction to Islam, New York: Macmillan, 1985. See also S. H. Nasr, Ideals and Realities of Islam, London: Allen & Unwin, 1966

11. Dawood, Surah 2:136

12. See article by Hans Kung “Christianity & World Religions: Dialogue with Islam”, pp. 192-209 in Leonard Swidler, Toward a Universal Theology of Religion, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987

13. See Chittick

13a. William Chittick, op.cit., p. 179

13b. Kenneth Cragg, The Call of the Minaret, 2nd edition, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985, pp. 233-234

14. See B.D. Kataregga & D.W. Shenk, Islam & Christianity, A Muslim & a Christian in Dialogue, Nairobi: Uzima, 1980, pp. 131-132

14a. See Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “The Islamic View of Christianity” pp. 126-134 in Paul J. Griffiths, Christianity Through Non-Christian Eyes, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990, p. 128

15. I discovered that my conclusions parallel those found in Kenneth Cragg in Jesus and the Muslim, op. cit. Cragg remarks that “it is fair to say that what divides Muslim and Christian – – how to recognize revelation, what constitutes ‘Scripture’, the measure of what humanity entails for God and God requires of man – – can all be seen as implicit in the question of Jesus” p. 289

Dr Mahmoud Sadek is a retired professor of Archeology and Art History, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. He received his B A from the University of Alexandria, Egypt, his M A from the University of Toronto, and his PhD from Columbia University, New York, USA. He founded and chaired the Classical Archeology Program at Guelph from 1973-79. He has directed Archeological excavations in Egypt, France and Spain, and specializes in Egyptian, Greek and Roman Archeology on which he has published many books and articles

The French in Egypt
Vol 7 1998

There are two outstanding contemporary accounts of Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798. One is by an Egyptian, al Gabarti, who kept a daily record of events during these turbulent times. The second is written by a member of the team of scholars that accompanied Napoleon’s campaign. Naturally, both wrote from very different perspectives, but this makes it all the more fascinating to view through their eyes how the drama of those times unfolded.

At the close of the eighteenth century, Egypt, under the last of the Mamluk rulers, had undoubtedly sunk to the abyss of its long history. That slow decline started when Egypt lost its independence at the battle of Marj Dabiq, north of Aleppo, in Syria. The last of the Mamluk sultans, Qansuh al Ghuri, died on the battlefield fighting the Ottoman army headed by Sultan Selim, the son of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, in the year 1516. Thus the Mamluk empire ended and Egypt became a province under the yoke of the Ottoman Empire for the next three centuries.

The Ottomans left the administration of Egypt to the Mamluk ‘Beys’ who reported to a Turkish governor appointed by the Sultan in Istanbul. Not only were crushing taxes imposed upon the Egyptians, but the Ottomans also collected one thousand of the best Egyptian artisans including goldsmiths, carpet weavers, calligraphers, wood-workers and other craftsmen, to work in Istanbul.

This did much to enhance to enhance the economy and cultural life of the Ottoman capital but it had disastrous effects upon the Egyptians. Moreover, the breakdown of the magnificent system of law and order established by the Mamluk sultans left Egypt greatly weakened and a prime target for foreign invaders.

There was a short period before the Napoleonic invasion when Egypt had a hope of independence when Ali Bey, the leading Mamluk, revolted against the Turkish governor and sent him back to Istanbul. Ali Bey marched with his army to Syria freeing it as well from the Ottomans, and he reached Mecca where he was hailed by the Arabs as the Caliph of Islam. Unfortunately he was murdered on his way back to Cairo, as a result of rivalry and intrigues. The rule of Egypt fell to his successor: Murad Bey and his co-ruler Ibrahim Bey.

Napoleon was watching this strife between Mamluk factions and the Turks with a keen eye as he had already set his sights on establishing his eastern empire. It was necessary for him to take Egypt as a first step towards India. When the French fleet was seen off the coast of Alexandria, Murad Bey summoned the esteemed Italian consul Rosetti and asked him nonchantly to pay off the “donkey boys”, as he called the French troops, by giving them a “handful of silver each”

He had never heard of Napoleon and confidently sent his army of 10,000 Mamluks and 30,000 irregulars (mainly Egyptians, Arna’outs, Africans and Bedouins) to face Napoleon’s 40,000 French veterans.

Meanwhile al Gabarti was busy recording all these happenings in his daily journal. abd al Rahman ibn Hasan al Gabarti, the Azhar University scholar, had written extensively about Egypt’s history but he is most interesting when describing what was happening in his own day.

He relates that Murad Bey believed that “if all the foreigners attack Egypt, he, Murad Bey, would destroy them all and let his cavalry trample them under the hooves of their horses“. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the forces were almost equal in number “the French had superior artillery and military discipline which was sadly lacking among the Mamluk Bey’s”. The famous battle of the Pyramids took place at Imbaba across the river from Cairo. Mamluk swords and cavalry were inevitably mowed down by French cannons and rifles . . .

Napoleon promptly issued a letter which he sent to the learned men of al Azhar and the judges and chief merchants, ostensibly to identify himself as a supporter of Islam but in fact to turn the populace against the Mamluks.

“Those Mamluks are not Egyptian. They were brought to Egypt from the steppes of Asia and the Caucasus, spoiling this beautiful country and its good hearted people .. God Almighty has decided that the time of the Mamluks is ended ..

If the land of Egypt truly belongs to the Mamluks let them show us the title deed that God has inscribed to them“. The letter as recorded by al Gabarti goes on to affirm that Napoleon was a Muslim and “the French people are Muslims and loyal to Islam. My proof is when we entered Rome we destroyed the papacy and removed the Pope who was always urging the Christians to fight Islam. We also entered Malta and destroyed the order of St John which claimed to instigate the killing of Muslims .. We are also friends of the Ottoman Sultan of Turkey and we are the enemy of his enemies. The Mamluks revolted against the rule of the Sultan and we are here to punish them”

Gabarti also mentions some accomplishments by the French during their brief stay. Egyptians were amazed to witness the sending up of a hot air balloon even though it came crashing down, to the chagrin of the French. The French also made improvements to the Nilometer to more accurately register the rise of the river in the time of the flood.

Fortifications, towers, lighthouses and administrative buildings were also erected by the French in Alexandria, Damietta and Rosseta.

All these achievements and vows of loyalty were undone with the departure of the French from Egypt three years later. Napoleon had already left for greener pastures and his deputy general Kleber’s assassination, together with the outbreak of a terrible bubonic plague that, according to Gabarti, wiped out two thirds of the populace, prompted the French to decamp for France. Although the army was guaranteed safe conduct to leave Cairo for Alexandria, where they would board ships for Europe, the troops left a trail of devastation in their wake.

Gabarti sums up the French occupation of Egypt – “the beginning of great misfortunes”

Despite such adversity, Egypt was awakened, however rudely, to shake off the doldrums of past centuries and to begin to play her part in the modern era. The French did much to make the world know about the glories of Egyptian civilization. In a following article I will present the opinions of a contemporary Frenchman who accompanied Napoleon on his Egyptian campaign, Baron Dominique Vivant Denon

Judaism and a Multicultural Society
Vol 7 1988

As a Jewish American who has come “north of the border” to serve the Jewish community of Kitchener/Waterloo and Cambridge I must comment on both the ‘melting pot’ theory and the ‘multicultural society’ theory. In the melting pot it is normal to observe the vast majority of people assimilate, forming a single entity. In the multicultural society the assumption is that people will maintain their own culture within a larger framework.

My name is Nathan W Langer and I am the Rabbi at the Beth Jacob Congregation in Kitchener. I was born in Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York. I am the son of a Holocaust survivor of the Nazi tyranny that engulfed Europe. My ancestry lends itself to be attuning to the issues of hatred and bigotry. I have personally suffered at the hands of prejudice. A melting pot assumes that everyone becoming part of one large unit will erase prejudice. Each person will maintain a small part of their culture, and will be ‘melted’ into the larger society.

If their culture does not ‘fit in’ there could be repercussions.

While there are many assorted problems with the melting pot, such as, loss of connection to the past culture, religious practice persecution, or difficulty integrating because one is ‘different’, there are still some positives. The major advantage being that one has to work at maintaining their cultural identity, and work make something worthwhile. The melting pot also causes people of different cultures, faiths and backgrounds to come together for a common goal.

The multicultural society often isolates us from one another serving as an insulation from learning to understand and live together, however, it also provides a way for a culture to self perpetuate. It is now time, as so many times before, to look toward different cultures as a way of bringing people together and bridging the gaps of humanity.

Judaism is by no means evangelical, with the exception of to other Jews. The best way to be multiculturally responsible is to respect one another and defend the rights of one another. This requires understanding but most of all, desire. There was once a person who was driven by the idea that people of the world who were most successful had a secret; this person spent an entire lifetime studying successful people. He learned about philosophy, salesmanship, and religious beliefs. The conclusion this person reached was that there were only two words that caused success, and those were: “I WILL”. If we are to be a multicultural society in Kitchener, we must listen to one another and say, “I will.” “I will” be there to battle bigotry and hatred.

“I will” be there to fight for truth in history, and “I will” be there to maintain a peaceful and cooperative coexistence

Christine Curtis – 1997 Trustee, Waterloo County Public School Board

A Citizenship Court
Vol 7 1998

at the reception that followed the ceremony Mrs Weston Lieutenant Governor of Ontario
(herself an immigrant) greeting one of the 20 new Canadians
who just took the oath of Canadian Citizenship
– Photograph Courtesy of Mr Mike Farrell (WCBE Communications Department)

In my opinion, one of the finest examples of the coming together of many nations and cultures was an event that occurred on Monday February 17, 1997 at the Kitchener City Hall Rotunda, celebrating 50 years of Canadian Citizenship with the passing of the Canadian Citizenship Act in 1947. During the week of February 10-17, citizenship courts were held in both public and separate schools, as we welcomed new Canadians with citizenship. In each court twenty new citizens were welcomed as Canadians and joined in the bond of commitment and loyalty which unites all Canadians.

His Honour, Judge Robert Sommerville directed some of his remarks to the audience, both old and new citizens. When he asked for those persons who were not born in Canada to raise their hands, very few people, other than the brand new Canadians, were able to do so. About one-half of the audience raised their hands when asked if any of their parents were not born in Canada. When he then asked if any of the audiences’ grandparents were not born in Canada, the majority of hands were raised across the audience. This was a very touching and visible reminder of how very close we all are to being immigrants here and also reminded all of us how very thankful we are that our parents or grandparents chose Canada to be their homeland.

The Judge emphasized the four important characteristics that new citizens expressed to him were their first impressions of Canada:

1) love for the newly found peace and freedom
2) the beauty of Canada with its clean air and water
3) the friendliness and generosity of Canadians they have met
4) the multiculturalism of Canada – often quite different from their homelands

Judge Sommerville charged the new citizens with the responsibility to be protectors and promoters of these four characteristics of Canada, which were so important to them and to ensure that their children and grandchildren, as well as new immigrants, continue to find these things to still be true in the years to come.

Those of us who perhaps have taken these four things for granted were moved to reaffirm our committment to uphold them alongside our fellow ‘new’ Canadians.

As all of us repeated the oath of Citizenship and sang our national anthem together, I could not help but believe that there is no finer expression of us crossing the barriers of many different cultures as we joined together at that moment as Canadians

Editor’s note:
I wonder how many Canadian-born truly feel the significance of being handed a ‘document’ that, in reality, marks the beginning of your second chance at life !