{"id":342092,"date":"2013-07-11T04:00:12","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T02:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/switzerland-muslims-and-christians-in-dialogue\/"},"modified":"2024-06-06T12:09:44","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T10:09:44","slug":"switzerland-muslims-and-christians-in-dialogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/switzerland-muslims-and-christians-in-dialogue\/","title":{"rendered":"Switzerland. Muslims and Christians in dialogue"},"content":{"rendered":"

A young Turkish man named Fathi, living in Basel , <\/strong>intoned Surah 134 of the Koran: \u201cAnd Allah loves the doers of good!\u201d With these words he took everyone right to the heart of the day\u2019s message: love for neighour. Imam Muhammed Tas, also fromBasel, told of his weeklong ski holiday with parish priest Ruedii Beck and two others: \u201cTogether we cooked for each other. We saw where it was most comfortable for each other in the apartment, for our prayer. We were like a family where you learn from each other. Thanks to these friends I learned to ski much better. In Autumn we plan to have another holiday together, this time inTurkey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abdul Jabbar Koubaisy, vice-president of the Muslim League in Poland, <\/strong>also expressed his admiration of the following Muslim saying: \u201cAnyone who does not know how to thank God\u2019s creatures will neither be able to thank their Creator.\u201d Paul Lemarie from the Focolare Movement\u2019s International Centre for Inter-religious Dialogue<\/a> told about a Mariapolis in Macedonia<\/a> with 35 Catholics, just as many Muslims and a dozen Orthodox Christians. Finally, a young Catholic woman offered her following testimony<\/strong>: \u201cThis gathering has deeply changed me. Up until now I only took my own faith into account and refused all the others: atheists, Muslims, even Orthodox Christians. Now I understand: God let\u2019s his Sun rise on everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The focus of the dialogue on June 23rd in Baar <\/strong>was the experience of community that is already possible when there is respect for the diversity. As a way of delving into this topic Imam Mohammed Tas introduced a video recording of a talk given by Chiara Lubich in 2002 at the congress for Muslim Friends of the Focolare Movement in Castelgandolfo, Italy. \u201cLove is quite an important thing in our religion,\u201d Tas emphasised. \u201cIf a person doesn\u2019t love, it means that he or she has a problem in their heart . . . Thirteenth century Muslim poet Yunus Emore, states: \u2018I love you for love of the Creator!\u2019 With these words he expresses the deepest love that can exist in a human being.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

And speaking with the words of Chiara Lubich<\/a>: <\/strong>\u201cWhat is needed is love for neighbour, that love that you find in many different religious environments, in forms of mercy, benevolence, compassion, or solidarity. Love of neighbour which, for us Christians, isn\u2019t merely a human sentiment, but enriched by a divine spark, is called agape<\/em>, love of a supernatural origin.\u201d<\/p>\n

There followed in the afternoon \u00a0a period of prayer in different locations according to religions<\/strong> and then group meetings for\u00a0 a deep and enriching sharing on the art of loving, forgiveness and the Golden Rule<\/a>. Imam Mustafa Oezturk, president of the association that groups the most mosques inSwitzerland, stated in his final remarks: \u201cWe\u2019re learning a new grammar here. The traditional one begins with the word \u201cme,\u201d then comes \u201cyou\u201d and then, lastly, \u201chim\u201d or \u201cher.\u201d But the grammar of love for neighbor begins with the word \u201cyou\u201d and then comes \u201cI\u201d or \u201cme.\u201d And \u201cHe\u201d or \u201cShe\u201d possess a right that must always be respected; that you only speak well of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: http:\/\/www.fokolar-bewegung.ch<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Swiss village of Baar a hundred people from the two religions gathered from all over the country for a day of dialogue and sharing at the Focolare\u2019s Eckstein Centre for Encounter and Formation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342092\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}