Delight in Differences
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Eid-al-fatr is four days from now as I write this.  That is the final evening of the month-long fast of Ramadan.  As it approaches I am glad for my Muslim sisters and brothers.  And I think of the many Muslims who have inspired and influenced me in positive ways, deepening my faith.  Among them are friends at the Madina Institute of Arkansas.  Tonight is their annual fundraiser, and I’ll be offering a word of support.  

What inspires me about my Muslim friends is not only that we are similar in many ways, which we are.  We share so much at many levels: psychological, social, and spiritual. We share a common humanity.  But what inspires me is also that we are different and that the differences make the whole richer.  I'm so glad to know, and learn so much from, people who are "not like me."  People who come from different cultures, who have different customs, who see life in a unique way, and whose life histories are different from mine.  What a burden it would be to think that your life and your way is the whole of truth, goodness and beauty.  Who would want thatt?

Delight in differences is a teaching of the Holy Qur’an and also a teaching of Process Theology.  For process thinkers the One in whose heart we live and move and have our being delights in, and is enriched by, our religious and cultural differences, which are complementary not contradictory.  Just as light shines through many panes in a stained glass window revealing different colors; so light shines through many religions, revealing different forms of wisdom,  In coming to know each other in our differences, we are enriched in ways that are impossible if we focus only on our similarities.  We live in a world of many colors.  All have their place in the larger ecology of life and, so I believe, in God's heart.  Let God be One in many ways, but let there be many in the heart of the One.

- Jay McDaniel, 5/8/2021
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​The Madina Institute 

and its Interfaith Outreach
​

"Treat others as you would like to be treated. Afford all human beings
unconditional compassion, kindness, and dignity, regardless of background."

                                                                          ​-- Madina Institute
​

About the Madina Institute
​in Oldham, UK

Madina Institute UK opened it's the first location to the public in December 2016 in Oldham. It aims to represent our perception of what a 21st Century Masjid (Mosque) should aspire to be; attempting to imitate the footsteps of the initial Masjid in Madinah which was built by the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alayhi Wa alihi Wasalam. A Masjid which was a center of love, warmth, openness, and excellence bringing communities together; offering facilities that catered for the "Academic, Social and Spiritual" needs of the Community. ​

About the Madina Institutes'programs for Young Muslims

Dr. Fatima Hendricks
of the Madina Center for Non-Violence and Peace Studies

​One of God’s most beautiful names is al-Jammi.  Occurring twice in the Qur’an it means something like the Gatherer of many into one.  It invites us to imagine God as a gatherer of many disparate things into a harmony, a complex unity.  Dr. Fatima Hendricks, with the al-Madina Center for Non-Violence and Peace Studies, suggests that this name can have special meaning for Muslims as they seek to live lovingly with one another, amid their differences, and also for peope of different faiths as they seek the same.

Miscellaneous photos from Madina Institute Facebook Pages

How Madina has influenced Me

reflection by Jay McDaniel

I am a Christian not a Muslim.  I cannot read the Qur'an in Arabic; I am not steeped in classical Muslim theology; I do not know the traditional prayers. 

However, I hear something deep and beautiful in the call to prayer and recitations of the Qur'an; I have taught Contemporary Islamic Thought to college undergraduates about five times; I  have co-taught a course on Leadership in a Multifaith World with a Muslim friend (Sophia Said); and I have many Muslim friends. 

I work with folks at the Madina Institute in Little Rock, Arkansas, and I admire them very much.  I like to go to the Institute and somehow feel "at home" in what may seem to other non-Muslims a strange and perhaps slightly exotic atmosphere.  I know the folks at Madina well enough to know that there's nothing exotic about them.  They are ordinary people, as am I, trying to live out their faith  and add a little love and beauty to the world.  I am, too.  In this spirit I offer a Christian response to the Madina that I know.

​One True Religion?

Perhaps, as folks at the Madina Institute believe, there is a true religion, planted within the heart of a boundless One in whose heart the universe unfolds.  I say "in whose heart" because, for me, God is not a being in the sky cut off from the world by the boundaries of divine transcendence, but rather an all-encompassing Womb in whose heart the universe unfolds, moment by moment. We are "in" God presence and in God's love, even if we don't know it.  God is One, to be sure, but One-Embracing-Many.

So if God is indeed this kind of One, then perhaps, as the Madina Institute proposes, even God has a "religion" and this religion which has compassion as its core.  Perhaps Jesus was a man who felt beckoned into this religion, inviting others to be similarly beckoned.  Perhaps, as Muslims say, he was a messenger.  Indeed I believe this is the case.  He was a ;prophet and messenger and so was Prophet Moses and so was Prophet Muhammad -- peace be upon them all.  All sought to be surrendered to the One in whose heart the universe unfolds.

Al-Jaami

How might we further imagine the compassionate One who thus beckons.  Muslims invite us to imagine the One as al-Jaami (the gatherer and uniter), which is one of the ninety-nine names of Allah.  This is the phrase Fatima Hendricks lifts up in the video on the left at eight minutes and fifty seconds.  She understands the name to refer to Allah as a healer and uniter.

The phrase is pregnant with evocative power.  It suggests that Allah's very will is that all the unreconciled parts of creation and humanity, and all of the unreconciled part of our own hearts as well, are or can be gathered into a harmony that includes, rather than blots out, multiplicity.  The differences between people and nations are not eliminated.  The differences themselves make the whole richer, albeit in a peaceful and non-violent way.  Such, she seems to say, is the will of Allah, the will of God.  Our task as humans is to be receptive to this will and live it out in our lives.

If there is wisdom in this idea, then we might all claim our muslim identities.  Here let the very word "islam" name, not people who belong to the religion of Islam, which is itself one among many, but people whose hearts are surrendered to the lure toward peace and non-violence.   These "muslims" may belong to different religions or to no religion.  Either way they practice, or seek to practice, the true religion. 

Like Jesus, like Moses, like Muhammad (peace be upon all of them) we are all "muslims" and our task is, or can be, to engage in activities that help purify the hearts so that our hearts are be infused with the spirit of al-Jaami, so that we act as reconcilers and peacemakers in the  world.  

Peace as the Fulness of Life 
On Earth as it is in Heaven

Here peace does not simply mean the absence of violence.  It means the fulness of life for individuals and communities.  A peaceful society is a community that is creative, compassionate, participatory, egalitarian, humane to animals, and good for the earth, with no one left behind and with none considered outsiders.  It is a society in which immigrants are welcomed, the sinful are forgiven, the lonely are befriended, and the rule of law is the rule of love.

If there is any wisdom in what I've said, then the purpose of the religion of Islam is not to build walls for the sake of isolation and self-satisfied purity, but to reach out to others.  It is to help people find the fulness of life as individuals and to help build these kinds of communities in which all people -- people who are Muslims and also people of other faiths and no faith -- feel safe, secure, and adventurous.  They have roots and wings.

​This is how the Madina Institute imagines Islam.  If Islam speaks with this voice, then I am very much in favor of it.  I will continue to practice it as a Christian.

Islam on a Journey

Even if God has a religion and it is compassion, I also know that no religion -- not my own and not Islam and not Judaism and not Buddhism -- has a lock on it.  As Muslims say: Allahu Akbar.  God is always greater than our concept of God including our religious concepts.

​The religions are also historical processes that evolve through time.  They are filled with diversity and competing interpretations among their followers, and they are always re-constructing themselves.  In any given generation their followers will identify what they take to be the essence of core of their traditiion, and seek warrant for their perspective by appeal to the past. 

The late philosopher and poet, Muhammad Iqbal, saw this, too.  He wrote a book called The Reconstruction of Islam in which he proposed that historical Islam is on a journey toward becoming what it was originally intended to be: a religion that respects the dignity of each and every person and treats all with compassion. He felt that the religion had been hijacked by overly-conserative religious scholars and that it can and should become a "spiritual democracy" where people not ulama rule, and that its adherents should live with respect for others.

Iqbal and Madina

Did he discover the true transhistorical essence of Islam?  I don't know.  What I know is that I like the Islam of which he speaks resembles the Islam of which the Madina Institute speaks.   Hear the Madina Institutes' statement of its core theological principes:

"We strongly believe that Islam is based on a firmly non-violent message and love, and therefore tries to teach the peaceful, loving, inclusive, and compassionate message of Islam.  Tradition must be distinguished from religion. Thinking, not just blindly following, is key. Unconditional compassion is the foundational cornerstone of our Deen. Violence, whether verbal, intellectual, or physical, is contrary to the core Message of Islam. Islam came with the strongest message of non-violence ever. Violence is the language of the inarticulate. If you can’t articulate your opponent’s points as well as you articulate your own, then you haven’t even started. Treat others as you would like to be treated. Afford all human beings unconditional compassion, kindness, and dignity, regardless of background."

​More About the Madina Institute
​
Madina Institure is an Islamic renewal organization with an online and local presence.  Its programs include a one Year Associate’s Degree Program in Islamic Studies. a three  Year Bachelor’s Degree Program in Islamic Studies Part-Time Islamic Studies Program.  It has local branches around the world, too: for example, in Oldham, UK; Capetown, South Africa; Ontario, Canada; and,, in the US,  in Atlanta, Georgia; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

In these local branches many courses are offered for young Muslims, including (and importantly) learning Arabic and how to read the Qur'an in Arabic.  Also important in these branches is the image of Islam that is offered, namely an image of unconditional compassion. The aims of the branches are to be centers of "love, warmth, openness and excellence" that inspire a new generation of Muslims and that reach out to people of other faiths in a spirit of cooperation, peace, 

On Being a Friend of Madina

​I am one of those people of other faiths.   What I so appreciate about Madina's vision is that it does not seek to turn me into a Muslim (member of the religion) but to help me become a muslim (surrendered heart) in my own Christian way.  I do not seek to turn Muslims into Christians, either.  I sense that we we Muslims and Christian -- and many, many others who are neither Muslim nor Christian - are included in a larger love that wants us to live in joyful, crazy, peace, respectful of one another and friends to each other.  I guess that, in my own small way, I'm a member of the Madina Institute, too.  Or, to be more accurate, a Friend of Madina.

​-- Jay McDaniel


About the Madina Institute of Arkansas
​

Some Photos from Facebook Page
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“The Madina Institute of Arkansas is a prominent religious congregation that emphasizes community engagement and interfaith education. Founded in 2016 by chairwoman Sophia Said, the Madina Institute champions the progressive principles of education, illumination, and compassion to develop and promote a comprehensive Islamic way of life. The Madina Institute is a diverse congregation with 95% of its members identifying as immigrants....The Madina Institute has numerous outreach initiatives, like the Prison Outreach Group, interfaith mask-making program, and annual Thanksgiving food drive. Madina also participates in civic efficacy efforts such as the One Little Rock School District and Black Lives Matter movements...When asked about achieving unity across religious faiths, chairwoman Said noted that “unity is not conformity...There’s beauty in celebrating differences.”

 - from the Madina Institute Survey Report, prepared by students and faculty at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Dec. 4. 2020

Sample of Programs

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  • Masjid Programs
  • Imam's Corner
  • Women Tajweed Class
  • Adult Quran Class
  • Madina Library
  • Nightly Khatira
  • Family Halaqas
  • Sisters Only
  • Children Activities

  • Youth Halaqa & Mentorship
  • Youth Fun & Socials
  • Youth Blog
  • Interfaith Programs
    • ​​Exploring Spiritual Alphabet
    • Silent Prayer and Meditation
  • Community Service Programs
    • ​Prison Outreadh
    • Interfaith Mask-Making (during Covid)
Photos from Bennilover, pstenzel71
Open Horizons