A sharing from JovanieNITUNGA, novice MSOLA
From June 9 to 14, the novices of MSOLA and the Missionaries of Africa, with the postulants of the Sisters of Mary Immaculate, we followed the Islamology session led by Father Pascal M.Afr and provincial assistant.
This session allowed us to learn several aspects about Islam, to know the goal of Islamic-Christian dialogue, the characteristics of interreligious dialogue, the discovery of the conversion of our founder and to make our journey of personal conversion.
Indeed, we have discovered the meaning of certain terms, namely: Islam which means to surrender or submit to God. The marabout is a traditional priest who knows the tradition well and who has converted to the Muslim religion. The imam is someone who can enter into a relationship with God and interpret the Quran. We discovered that Islam is a monotheistic and revealed religion. Muslims believe in a distant God and that no creature can be like him. This is why man is in the image of Adam.
We learned that in the Quran, great importance is given to Jesus. He is a special creature, compared to the word of God, therefore to the Koran. Which justifies that Muslims believe in his death, but they wait for it as a sign on the last day.
Concerning women, we discovered that Islam freed women from the ancient tradition where the birth of a daughter was a misfortune for the father. The latter could tell the midwives to throw her into the well when she was born or to bury her. Muhamed told people not to bury their daughters alive anymore. We also learned that the daughter shares the inheritance with her brother. Faith is the value of a woman because it was Muhamed’s wife who first believed in his apparitions.
During this session, our outlook changed on our way of seeing Muslims. For example, we have come to an understanding of how we see Muslim women living in their environment which is different from what the Quran indicates, because they do not read it and act in ignorance. The Koran speaks of equality between men and women, but the reality is quite different. It was also an opening to discover that in Islam, Jesus has an important place and that Muslims believe in one and the same God as we do.
The goal of dialogue is the search for truth. In this search for truth, interreligious dialogue can be a dialogue of life at the level of works, theology or the sharing of religious experience.
Four attitudes must characterize interreligious dialogue:
clarity, because dialogue requires that we understand each other;
gentleness, which knows how to listen and consider others so as not to impose oneself;
confidence which provokes friendship;
and prudence which adopts pedagogy which seeks to know the sensitivity of the other.
Our founder’s outlook towards Muslims changed positively during his trip to Syria, notably following his meeting with the Emir Abd-el-Kader, an Algerian Muslim, who was in exile in Damascus. The latter had saved thousands of Christians because he could not accept that they were being massacred under the pretext that they were Christians. When Lavigerie went to meet him to thank him, the Emir told him:
“I only did my duty, I do not deserve praise.”
Lavigerie had found that it was a language that Christianity would not have disavowed. He will say that Islam is also the path to salvation.
It was from this conversion of Lavigerie that the charism of apostolic charity was born which he gave to our MSOLA and M.Afr institutes.
We are grateful to Father Pascal for his dedication.
