Not Just One Thing!

four congregations, each worshiping in a different language and/or representing a different denomination. Parishes of the Episcopal Church celebrate the Eucharist regularly in one of more than a dozen languages besides English – including Bontoc, Ga, and Tamil. We have barely begun to scratch the surface of the organized presence of Christians in NYC.

So too is it with Islam and Muslims in New York City. The famous 96^th Street mosque – the largest in Manhattan – serves an ethnically and culturally diverse population, as do many other mosques in each borough. But there are also mosques which serve a population that is primarily Indonesian, or Bangladeshi, or Afghani, or Turkish, or Yemeni, or Pakistani – the list is extensive. Some mosques are historically African-American; others serve our growing community of African immigrants. In New York, Shi‘ah Muslims are as likely to be South Asian as Middle Eastern. Sunni and Shi‘ah alike, congregations include converts from many ethnicities. Again, we have only begun to scratch the surface in accounting for NYC’s Muslim presence, nor have we mentioned NYC’s Ismaili and Ahmadiyyah communities – both of whom, post 9/11, have sought to include Christians and others in major events they have planned.

So, when you ask me to reflect on Christian-Muslim relations in New York City, I must counter with other questions: what method of inter-relating? Between which Christians and which Muslims? In what sort of venue? For what purpose? There are indeed some official structures and various kinds of umbrella organizations by which the intra-Christian and intra-Muslim conversations can move to Christian-Muslim dialogue and common action (and vice versa), but interreligious relationship-building, dialogue, and education have always taken place through a plethora of less formal channels. This article offers examples of New York Christian-Muslim interaction stemming from three nodes in our common life in the USA’s largest and most intensely multireligious city: (1) World Trade Center Attacks themselves; (2) the Iraq War; and (3) the Tsunami. Some were initiated by Christians; some, by Muslims. Some were institutionally driven; others were very much “grass-roots”. Mine is not a scientific nor unbiased sampling: my own location as an interreligious relations specialist who is an Episcopalian colors the lens through which I see Christian-Muslim interaction in my city.

THE WORLD TRADE CENTER ATTACKS

The Episcopal-Muslim Relations Committee of the Diocese of New York Ecumenical Commission (EMRC) was established in response to the first Gulf War, and, ironically enough, presented its first formal report on September 11, 1991. In this article, the EMRC should be seen as emblematic rather than exemplary: it stands for the many dialogue circles and agencies which were already in place before tragedy struck, and which sprang into action when it did. Since I have sat on the EMRC for many years, it is only natural that its efforts are in the foreground of my reflections.

Soon after the World Trade Center Attacks, the national Episcopal Church issued a call to its members to “wage reconciliation”. The EMRC sent letters to mosques in and near NYC, stressing our recognition of the “double anguish” from which our Muslim neighbors were suffering: grief for our city as a whole, and for the loved ones they themselves lost in the Trade Towers on the one hand; and the pain of suffering generalized, collective blame. The letter condemned all backlash acts of violence and harassment directed at Muslims, their places of worship, their various other institutions, and their businesses.

The EMRC also pledged to redouble its efforts to educate its own about Islam and positive Christian-Muslim relations. For the most part, this took the form of providing parish leaders with educational materials, bibliographies, guidance in organizing parish-to-mosque outreach, and help in locating appropriate guest speakers for adult education sessions. Typical of the way Christian-Muslim education happens in a city as big, as diverse, and as fluid as New York, this effort was neither systematic nor steady. Fortunately, it was enhanced by the participation of the committee’s network of Muslim friends – imams, political scientists, and others – and we were grateful to be able to call on them, knowing too well that Muslims who were skilled at working interreligiously were being bombarded with such requests.

Brooklyn resident Debbie Almontaser, a Yemeni-American educator with the New York Board of Education and a devout Muslim, is one such highly skilled person. Her first “speaking gig” in a church was 9/16/01 – at the invitation of a Christian member of a dialogue initiative in which both were regular participants. This was a positive experience, as was her first day back at her job. Nevertheless, during the days following the Trade Tower Attacks, there was plenty of reason to be fearful: the threat of backlash violence was real, and her son – a member of the U.S. military – was stationed at Ground Zero. But by late September 2001, she and her husband had decided to be deal with fear assertively. They walked to the church nearest their Brooklyn home and invited the congregants to stop by for refreshments, which they served from tables set up in their front yard. “Just come and get to know us” was the message. About 150 people did come – not just from that church, but from the neighborhood as a whole.

In the weeks that followed, Almontaser answered numerous requests to speak about Islam and Arabs to church and civic groups. In early 2002, when the Christian Children’s Fund launched a public-school program for teaching tolerance (the first time it had done anything like this in NYC), she was the natural choice to be the program’s full-time multi-cultural educator. In my reflections, she stands for the many Muslims who worked tirelessly to show Islam to be a positive presence in the city, often with good humor while under tremendous pressure. Yet in virtually every parish I visited as an interreligious relations consultant during this same interval, I would be asked: “Where are moderate Muslims? Why don’t they speak out against the people who attacked us?” I am still asked that question.

If we review the months following the Trade Tower Attacks, we can find a variety of Christian and Muslim initiatives to effect healing. Some were institutional. Some were individual – like the Almontaser family’s curb-side party for the neighborhood; or like the Christian woman who printed a stack of broadsides urging New Yorkers to patronize Afghani restaurants (most of which had fallen quite empty with the commencement of the bombing of Afghanistan) and stapled them to trees on every block of her Manhattan neighborhood. In some, Christians led the way; in others, Muslims did. A particularly beautiful example was initiated by Daisy Khan, who mustered the resources of the ASMA Society – an organization dedicated to Islamic Culture and Arts which she and her husband, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, had founded in 1997 – to show New Yorkers the gentle side of Islam and Muslims. On January 19, 2002, the AMSA Society made use the Synod House of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine to present Reflections at a Time of Transformation, an offering to the city by Muslim visual artists, musicians, and poets.

Energized by the success of Reflections, Khan went on to organize a more explicitly interfaith event: a Córdoba Bread Fest, held in June 2002 at Manhattan’s Saint Bartholomew’s Church, where Imam Feisal is a frequent instructor in the parish’s Center for Religious Inquiry. Through skits and song, Jews, Christians, and Muslims taught each other about the place of bread in their traditions – and then dined together. From this has come ASMA Society’s Córdoba Initiative, “a multi-faith effort to increase intercultural communication and tolerance, stimulate fresh, new approaches to achieving peace, and help heal the relationship between Islam and America.”[ii]

Early November 2001 brought an interreligious opportunity of an entirely different sort. Then Iranian President Seyed Mohammad Khatami would be attending a meeting at the United Nations, and asked to meet with New York religious leaders while he was in town. Religions For Peace brokered the arrangements, and the Episcopal Diocese of New York agreed to host a meeting. Given the choice to speak in the auditorium-like Synod House or the “choir” area of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine itself, President Khatami’s staff opted for the latter.

The event was held in the cathedral on the afternoon of November 12^th, albeit under very tight security. An airliner had crashed upon take-off from JFK Airport just a few hours before, and there was as yet no way to know whether the cause had been more terrorism or something else. President Khatami gave a fine address on The Role of Religion in the Dialogue Among Civilizations to a gathering of some one-hundred bishops, priests, pastors, monks, nuns, imams, rabbis, and laypersons. This was a Monday. The New York Times waited until the following Saturday to report on a meeting between a Muslim head-of-state and an array of New York religious leaders in our post-9/11 city, tucking the story away on an inside page of Section D. By contrast, when the Cathedral caught fire one month later (an accident, not arson), The New York Times gave that event prominent same-day, next-day, and follow-up coverage.

One more example of Christian-Muslim cooperation in response to 9/11 is well suited to help us make the transition our second category of reflections. Recall that U.S. aerial bombing of Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001. About a month later, the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York met with the diocesan Episcopal-Muslim Relations Committee to say that a news account of the first air strikes indicated that a mosque had been destroyed. He asked the EMRC to verify the story. If it proved to be true, he wanted to investigate the possibility of the diocese’s rebuilding it.

After a few months of research, the EMRC ascertained that the Public Mosque of Qarhabagh – not far north of Kabul – had been badly damaged. Whether it was the particular mosque in the news report the bishop had heard was deemed beside the point. The project was undertaken in partnership with the imam of an historically Afghani mosque in Queens, with the assistance of an organization called Global Exchange, and with a mixed attitude on the part of the diocese as a whole. As it ensued, three EMRC member were sent to Qarhabagh (one at a time) to assess progress. By Spring 2003, the mosque had been rededicated – with an Episcopal priest present for the occasion.

As this controversial project was executed with no strings attached, there has been no follow-up since it was declared closed in November 2003. Developing an ongoing relationship with the Afghani-American mosque congregation who collaborated in the Qarhabagh project would be better done by a nearby parish than at the diocesan level; and to complicate matters, that congregation has since divided over internal issues. Be all of this as it may, there has been at least one collateral positive consequence of the mosque reconstruction project. Work with one facet of the Afghani community of Queens led the EMRC to awareness of Women For Afghan Women (WAW), a human-rights organization of women (Afghan and not) from the New York area. As individuals, several EMRC members have become involved with WAW, including one priest who has spent many hours teaching in the literacy program for Afghan immigrant women in Queens.

THE IRAQ WAR

As I reflect on the invasion of Iraq as a second node in NYC Christian-Muslim relations, the first thing that needs to be said is that it is difficult, at two years’ distance, to tease apart what Christian, Muslim, and Christian-Muslim activities constitute a response to the war itself. Since the invasion of Iraq, there have continued to be a range of Christian-Muslim initiatives, just as there had been prior to it. For example, Mel Lehman, a Mennonite, working with Muslim and Christian support-troops, brought the ensemble Kulna Sawa (Syrian “fusion” musicians – some Christian, some Muslim) on concert tour from Damascus to NYC and other American venues during Fall 2004. Interreligious dialogue programs have been initiated by mosques as well as by churches. Also, interfaith iftars during Ramadan have provided occasions for teaching and fellowship.

One must remember, however, that by the time the Iraq War began in March 2003, the USA PATRIOT Act (signed October 26, 2001) had been in effect for more than a year, with the detainee situation being one of its most deeply distressing ramifications. The strain of being Muslim in NYC is not always evident to others. In acknowledgment of that fact, a recent Auburn Seminary Women’s Multifaith Program event, Muslim Women in America During the War on Terror, allowed for a frank interreligious discussion of the constant, frightening pressure NYC’s Muslims feel in today’s political climate.

The Islamic Circle of North America was (and remains) the organization most in the forefront of support for families of detainees, and its officers have been able to share their perspective on the detainee situation in many churches and occasional seminary classrooms as well as mosques. In addition, there have indeed been individual Christians and even entire church congregations who also have done this work of advocacy and support from the beginning, but I think it is safe to say that most have not.

Perhaps the fact that the fighting did not end when the Iraq War “ended” is the reason for renewed interest on the part of at least some New York Christians to understand Islam and Muslims better – if the calls I receive as a consultant can be treated as a barometer. Where immediately post-9/11, most requests from clergy or adult-education coordinators were for information on Islam’s core beliefs and practices, in recent months the desire is for sessions explaining the difference between Sunni and Shi‘iah, or an for an introduction to Islamic Law. It seems to me that too many NYC Christians still ask, “Where are the ‘moderate Muslims’?” And sadly, “moderate Muslims” has now become an undesirable label, according to trusted Muslim colleagues. (“Liberal” and “Progressive” were already tainted in the minds of some, because these labels have tended to be linked to rather specific agendas.) “Moderate”, it seems, has become a pejorative which implies “not devout” or “not legitimate”. This begs the question: when we want to say “non-extremists”, what should we say, if not “moderate”? “Call us “responsible Muslim voices” or “engaged Muslim scholars” or “creative Muslim thinkers”, suggests an officer of a human-rights organization. “Ask, ‘Where are reliable and honest Muslim partners?’”

THE TSUNAMI

The December 2004 Tsunami, the third node in NYC Christian-Muslim relations on which this paper reflects, was a different sort of provocation for interreligious interaction. NYC has rather sizable Indonesian and Sri Lankan communities, in both cases multi-religious. The impact of the tragedy was far from abstract for many families here. Like virtually everyone else, New York Muslims wanted to take action, but they faced a special challenge. As one leader put it, the question of the moment was, “How do we get our community to make donations of money when the War on Terror has clamped down on Muslim charitable organizations in the US, and when undocumented people are fearful?”

Debbie Almontaser played a major role in organizing the response. Some considerations were mundane, she recalls, such as: where to put the food, clothing, and medicine once it had been gathered. “Kids as young as seven years old helped,” she says. Coordination was difficult. For one very stressful month, donations of medicine, clothing, and canned or bagged food were gathered at four Brooklyn sites, and then transported to a central collection site in New Jersey. That required a truck. “Ultimately,” says Almontaser, “it was a Jewish company in Brooklyn that came through with a truck for us.” When Brooklyn’s Jewish Community Relations Board and the Borough President’s Office both posted this effort on their websites, she was thrilled! “What Muslims had organized was something that everyone could be involved in – not just Muslims!”

Collecting Tsunami relief supplies was not enough, Almontaser continues. “We Muslims wanted to hold a Memorial Service.” Imam Symasi Ali, himself an Indonesian diplomat, called a meeting in Queens for any Muslims willing to take the lead on this. “Thirty people came,” Almontaser recalls; “but six to eight people actually did the work in the end.” The result was a multi-religious Service of Rembrance, held in mid-February at Manhattan’s Riverside Church.

Riverside Church was the venue because it had also been the site of the most recent 9/11 memorial service, which Debbie Almontaser had helped to plan. Thus she already had a working relationship with the clergy. When it came to planning the Tsunami Memorial, this door for Christian-Muslim cooperation was already open. However, as the imam of one of Harlem’s mosques explained to the Service of Rembrance audience, no one should have been surprised that a Muslim-sponsored event would take place at Riverside Church – an institution that has long been a haven for anyone on the margins, long been engaged in interreligious projects, and long been known for its justice activism. Muslims had been invited to speak there many times over the years.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

What I hope this reflection-paper reveals is that plenty of positive effort has been expended by Christians and Muslims for each others’ benefit during the years since the World Trade Center Attacks. Much of it has been unsystematic, inconsistent, or awkward. Much of it has been nonetheless heartfelt. Where these efforts have gone smoothly, often it has been because friendship and trust was in place long beforehand. Be that as it may, it does seem to me that during this interval, the network of Christians and Muslims with a particular vocation to improve mutual understanding – to wage reconciliation – has expanded, as have formal and informal structures for doing so. Yet the question lingers: did each of the examples I have given have a ripple-effect? If so, how long did it last? How many attitudes were changed? Is it even possible to measure this in a city as large and fluid as New York?

As I asserted in my Introduction, Christian-Muslim relations in New York City are inherently varied and complex. It’s not just one thing. There are so many stories to hear, so much to report. This article could have told, for example, about the interreligious efforts of umbrella organizations for New York’s Turkish-American and Shi‘ah communities, and about the interreligious work of the Roman Catholic Archdioceses of New York and Brooklyn. It is important to note as well that NYC Christian-Muslim relations work does not take place in a vacuum: often the context is multireligious; frequently, it is actually a conversation of which our Jewish neighbors are the third partner – and I have only hinted at that.

Again, this paper is a reflection on my own experiences in New York City’s interreligious arena. A social scientist reporting on a carefully crafted study would tell a different story. A Muslim author might have foregrounded other examples and issues. Furthermore, I personally could also have chosen to tell a very different story, one driven entirely by negatives. There is indeed skepticism and dissonance on both sides, and I could have mounted examples of that. These things are part of the complexity of living in the largest and most religiously diverse city in the United States. If we are to get the story straight, we cannot ignore these elements, but we have a choice as to which to give pride of place.

Dr. Lucinda Mosher chairs the Episcopal-Muslim Relations Committee of the Diocese of New York Ecumenical Commission, and is an assistant to the staff of the Anglican Communion Network for Inter Faith Relations. She works extensively with clergy, congregations, and non-profit agencies on issues of interreligious understanding. She also teaches part-time at Fordham University and the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Lucinda’s most recent book is Faith in the Neighborhood: Belonging (Seabury Books, 2005).

NOTES

[i] Paraphrase of James Wm. McClendon Jr, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Volume I (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1986), 63-64. McClendon makes this claim of “the Christian moral life”.

[ii] See the ASMA Society website: http://www.cordobainitiative.org/home/index.html.