Young Christian students in Delhi and Rome are carrying out a special initiative to accompany them in prayer and dialogue with their Muslim brothers and sisters during the holy month of Ramadan.
A gesture that takes on a particular meaning in a context like that of India today. The initiative was promoted by two professors from the Pontifical Urbaniana University – prof. Gaetano Sabetta and Professor Nadjia Kebour, an Algerian Muslim who has lived in Rome for years – together with some students and other friends from the Focolare movement of Delhi and the Jesuit Fr. Victor Edwin SJ, of the Islamic Studies Association of the capital of India.
“Some young Christian students from Rome and Delhi are accompanying their Muslim friends in prayer during the month of Ramadan – the professors explain to AsiaNews. Gaetano Sabetta and Nadjia Kebour -. This year Ramadan coincides with the period of Lent, so they are both religiously and spiritually significant periods that can stimulate meetings between believers and renewed interreligious understanding. Both Delhi and Rome are central places for Hindus, Muslims, and Christians, and such an initiative is undoubtedly of great religious and moral significance.”
The initiative is part of an experience already lived in other contexts: “It was born on the Philippine island of Mindanao – say Sabetta and Kebour – where Christians started a program called Accompanying Ramadan. This spiritual practice was then taken up in some parishes in the city of Liverpool, adding some information on Ramadan.
Given the fundamental importance of the Koran for Muslims, it was also thought that this prayer guide could be integrated with some brief information on the Muslim holy book. Thus were born the short daily reflections on the verses of the Koran that Card. Michael Fitzgerald, a great figure in Islamic Christian dialogue, wanted to offer as a Christian an opportunity to spiritually accompany our Muslim brothers and sisters during Ramadan. It became a book entitled ‘Traveling with Muslims. Listening, praying, and working together are the basis of the initiative day by day”.
Several students from Rome and Delhi are involved, coordinated by the three teachers. “It is part of a broader movement of interreligious dialogue and encounter – continue the two professors of the Pontifical Urbaniana University – which also involves the practice of Interfaith Scriptural Reasoning, an interreligious dialogue tool that brings together people of different faiths to read and reflect on everyone’s writings.
Here it is not about seeking agreement, but about exploring the texts and their possible interpretations across the boundaries of faith and also learning to ‘disagree’. The result is often a deeper understanding of each other’s scriptures and one’s own and the development of strong bonds between religious communities.”
One of the young students commented in recent days: “It is a small open door for every Christian to enter the Muslim religious world, benefit from it and rejoice by overcoming all prejudices”.
“Our hope – conclude Sabetta and Kebour – can only be to promote love between religions and cultures, through mutual knowledge and sharing, also through common actions to be carried out for the common good. There is no shortage of difficulties, given the prejudices deriving from ignorance and mutual simplification, and the difficulty of getting closer to others, but nothing can stop this slow but constant movement of interreligious rapprochement with the one God”.
