c. 1999 Religion News Service

AMMAN, Jordan _”Peace be unto you,”sang a group of some 40 Jews in a traditional Friday evening prayer service last week (Nov. 26). But the prayer carried a special meaning this time as it was chanted at the start of a Sabbath meal here _ a mere 50 miles over undulating brown desert mountains from Israel but across a gulf of longstanding Israeli-Arab acrimony.

The Jews from Israel, Europe and elsewhere were among the 600 delegates from over a dozen religious streams gathered here for another encounter between traditions of the East and West, as well as between rival religious factions in conflict-ridden regions such as Bosnia, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone and the Middle East.

Here, international representatives of the three major monotheistic religions met for what organizers said was the first time on Arab soil along with a host of other traditions, including Buddhists, Shintos, Hindus and Jains as well as a smattering of indigenous religious people from Australia and Latin America.”All of the religious communities are now very rapidly mainstreaming the issue of multireligious cooperation,”said the Rev. William Vendley, secretary general of the World Conference on Religions and Peace, sponsors of the gathering which ended Monday (Nov. 29).”Some very eminent figures have participated from the beginning, 30 years ago,” Vendley said. “But then they were for the most part bold spirits operating in a sort of prophetic mode, outside of an institutional framework. “Now, in particular, this conference represents a profound signal of Islamic confidence that Islam can assume a leadership role in interreligious dialogue.” That new spirit was evident in the high-profile treatment accorded the event by Jordan’s Hashemite regime, which not only cosponsored the gathering but used it as a platform for a major policy address on Jerusalem by Jordan’s new King Abdullah.

Speaking at the conference’s opening session on Thursday, the monarch called for a sharing of Jerusalem’s holy sites between Jews, Muslims and Christians as well as for a sharing of political rights between Palestinians and Israelis.

In yet another ceremonial gesture laced with symbolism, the Israeli Orthodox Jewish Rabbi David Rosen of the Anti Defamation League, shared the podium with top Egyptian Muslim figure, Grand Sheikh Tantawi of Al Azhar University, and new Indonesian president Abdurrachman Wahid, a rising Islamic star.”As a Muslim, I have been branded as an agent for the Mossad, an agent of the Ba’ath Party, an agent of the CIA and an agent of the KGB,”the outspoken Wahid said in his remarks. He was referring to the criticism leveled at him recently in the Arab world after he said he planned to establish commercial ties with Israel.”Yet in the legacy of the ulemas (Islamic scholars), we find many calls to engage in dialogue,”the Indonesian president added.”These are calls to modernize our ideas and to look for the common aims of humanity.” Indeed, it was Hassan and Wahid who emerged here as leaders of a new constellation of moderate Muslims from Asia and the Middle East who are now actively promoting religious dialogue both as a fresh approach to regional conflicts and a way to counter Islam’s bad image in the West.

It was the personal prestige of Hassan, who was elected as chairman of the WCRP, that persuaded a number of Muslim leaders from around the Middle East, as well as from war-torn regions such as Bosnia, to take the leap into interreligious encounters, said Vendley.

Hassan has maintained a longtime personal interest in interfaith issues, close associates say, since attending university at Oxford’s Christ College. In 1994, the prince founded the Royal Jordanian Institute for Interfaith Studies, which sponsors academic research on religious issues in the Middle East. He also has published a book on Christians in the Middle East.

Wahid, meanwhile, has been watched closely by religious and political analysts since his election a few weeks ago as president of Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, with over 150 million citizens.

His rise to power, many believe, represents the ascendance of a Southeast Asian stream of Islam unfamiliar to many Westerners as well as to many in the Arab world. “For years, Indonesian Muslims were often perceived as second-class Muslims in the Middle East,”said Sharif Horthy, a British Muslim who administers a London-based peace education foundation and lived in Indonesia for over two decades. “Wahid, because of his reputation as a deeply rooted Islamic scholar is respected as a serious Muslim in a way that his predecessors in Indonesia were not,”Horthy added.”As a result, he also can be a powerful promoter of dialogue.” As leader of Indonesia’s Islamic Scholars Party, Wahid shaped his movement in the legacy of the medieval Muslim teachers, or ulema, who represented one of the most enlightened eras of Islam. Wahid also has been active for decades in promoting social welfare and tolerance at Indonesia’s grassroots level.

Prior to his election, Wahid had become a prominent actor in international peace forums, including two trips to Israel where he sits on board of the Peres Center for Peace. “I think he is really a historic figure of monumental proportions,”said Rosen, who was publicly greeted by Wahid in Amman as a brother-in faith.”He is almost the medieval Islamic ideal of the caliph who is both the visionary political leader and the enlightened religious leader.””Both in terms of Western phobias vis-a-vis Islam in general, as well as the disproportionate amount of terror and violence associated with radical Islam, to have the leader of the largest Muslim country in the world articulate the most exquisitely enlightened and all-embracing notions of Islam is of enormous consequence,”Rosen said. “And it is not just the brand of Islam that he espouses but also the courage with which he expresses his stance on contemporary social and economic issues that is significant,”Rosen added.”Wahid chose to say here, in Jordan, an Arab country, that he intends to continue his rapprochement with Israel, conveying a message that he considers enlightened Islam to be an Islam of dialogue.”DEA END FLETCHER