PREFACE

Meeting Muslims is a normal part of Christians Aware's work in Britain and also around the world. This book has grown out of "Listening Days", visits, conferences and courses; as we have been made alive to the frustrations many Muslims, together with members of other faiths, feel about the ways in which they are often perceived by others, and especially by Christians.

We have prepared this book as a contribution particularly for Christians in Britain who are seeking to understand their Muslim neighbours. Our hope is that it will encourage Muslim and Christian people to meet each other in their local communities, and to develop friendship, trust and working together.

We hope that through meeting, both Muslims and Christians will move beyond their first mental pictures of each other towards developing mutual awareness and realistic appreciation. Some of the organisations which will help in this venture are included at the end of our book.

My first real encounter with Muslim people was in Mauritius, when I took a Christians Aware group there as the guest of the Church. One day of the visit was spent in meeting people of other faiths on the island, and the evening session took us to a mosque. I and the other women in the group were fortunate to be invited to join the Muslim women in a special meal. during which we were relaxed enough to get beyond trivialities and to learn about each other's ways of living, working, bringing up children and growing in faith. Since that visit and encounter I have made several friendships with Muslims in Britain, and so the learning opportunities have continued.

When any combination of people meet each other, Muslims and Christians included, learning and sharing depend upon the people trusting each other enough to be open and truthful. If there is a hidden agenda, on anyone's part, it can very easily be detected. Christians and Muslims need to develop the patience to listen to each other. It is only when people describe themselves and their faiths that they are willingly un-masked and that their reality and dignity are revealed for others.

Those of us who are Christians and who live in Britain have a special opportunity and therefore a special responsibility to learn from our Muslim neighbours, who now number well over one million. In Britain we have a freedom and an opportunity to meet and share with people of other faiths which, in global terms is rare. Christians and others who come to Britain from restricted and even some dangerous situations are often grateful for their new opportunities to learn. In Britain we may be pioneers for the future of inter-faith friendship in Europe. There are many Muslims on mainland Europe, many living isolated lives, apart from the larger and long-established Christian communities.

When Muslims and Christians are able to trust each other and to share honestly and openly, they may also grow to realise that they have many concerns in common and that they can work together for the good of their communities. It is encouraging that this is beginning to happen in some areas.

An atmosphere of trust should free people to speak openly about their faiths as well as to listen to others, and so to become aware of what they have in common and what they disagree about. Christians and Muslims will learn that they share a tradition of fasting and pilgrimage and a responsibility for the poor and suffering of the world. They will agree that there is only one God, but they will disagree about the nature of God and of Christ, and they will continue to respect and love each other, rather as they respect and love members of their own families even when they do not agree with them.

Meeting Muslims in modern Britain is not an option for the Christian, it is an essential part of the challenge towards Christian living and discipleship in our world, in which Muslims and people of other faiths live, a challenge towards working with all God's people in bringing peace and justice not only in Britain but throughout the world.

Barbara Butler