By Midhun J Francis
New Delhi, Feb 25, 2022: The Islamic Studies Association has published a book on dialogue to mark its 40th anniversary.
The book titled, “A Call to Dialogue: Christians in Dialogue with Muslims,” was presented to scholars and students at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome February 22 by Prof. Bryan Lobo SJ, the dean of the university’s faculty of Missiology.
The book comprises essays selected from the past 40 volumes of Salaam, the journal of the Delhi=based association. It was edited by Ambrogio Bongiovanni, professor at the faculty of Missiology at the Gregorian University, and Jesuit Father Joseph Victor Edwin, a teacher of theology and Christian Muslim relations at Delhi’s Vidyajyoti College of Theology.
Diego Sarrio Cucarella, president of the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI), Rome, and Monsignor Indunil Kodithuwakku, the secretary of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, presented their review of the volume.
Cucarella commented that Islamic Studies Association, Delhi, is noted not only for its history but also for its ingenuity in establishing links between Christian and Islamic studies. He also added that the essays in book present Christian-Muslim dialogue from a Catholic perspective.
It is guided by the mission and teachings of Vatican II that unite us to promote and defend the moral values of peace and freedom together, as the Council invites us, he said and added that the reflections are often informed by an experience lived on the field.
Monsignor Kodithuwakku pointed out that our religious identity is crucial for interreligious discourse, but so is our social identity and how others see us because religious beliefs impact our identity, attitudes, and behavior.
He further noted that the book renders: “ … good service to a wider audience, good samples of concrete efforts to improve Christian-Muslim relations and understanding in the Indian context, which could illuminate and encourage the work of others engaged in the same type of commitment in other contexts as well.”
Ambrogio Bongiovanni, one of the editors, said the idea of the book was born during a dinner he had with Father Edwin in Delhi.”
Father Edwin, in his presentation emphasized that India is a socialist, secular, democratic republic. Both Christians and Muslims have the responsibility to work together for nation building. They have a common vocation to work for peace that is founded on justice, and for that they must draw from the sources of their respective faiths, he said.
Jesuit Father Bryan Lobo, dean of the Faculty of Missiology at Gregorian University, moderated the program.