What Catholics can learn from the Quran (Albany diocesan official)

RNS ^ | August 20, 2012 | Kathleen K. Duff

[NYer]

(RNS) This year during Ramadan — the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar when Muslims believe the Quran was first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad —  I was in solidarity with my Muslim sisters and brothers throughout the world by reading the Quran. But here's the thing: I am a Roman Catholic.

My copy of the Quran, with more than 1,700 pages, has sat on the top shelf of my bedroom bookcase among other sacred texts for 14 years. Typically I would use it as a sporadic reference and resource to better understanding Islam, reading a few short passages at a time.

A Quran photographed in a mosque (2012). Credit: RNS photo by Sally Morrow

However, this Ramadan something at the core of my being was calling me to read the Quran in its entirety. And so my monthlong Ramadan journey began.

Each day and evening, the prayerful poetry in the Quran held me in a meditative mode of peace as I read without being aware of the passage of time.

When I finished reading a week before the end of the month, I felt as if the Quran was almost endless, reaching beyond the confines of my calendar days. I didn’t want to read the last page. I didn’t want to be finished.

The Quran inspired me, taught me and helped me to remember my essential holiness and how that holiness in the image of God should be reflected in the world.

As Ramadan comes to a close this weekend (Aug. 18-19) with Eid al-Fitr, I find myself focusing on the blessings I have been given through the grace of God while reading the Quran.

The Quran encouraged me to continuously be aware of a gracious and merciful God who cherishes humanity and cherishes all of creation. I came to believe more firmly during my humble Ramadan experience that being cherished by God is an example of divine love beyond the limitations of any one language, symbol and imagination.

Certainly this has implications for how we treat each other and care for the world.

Many chapters, or surahs, in the Quran had me reflecting on the diversity and opposite realities in nature (night/day, male/female, darkness/light, beginning/ending, life/death) and reaffirming that God is found in both. This insight into sacred polarity is a perfect teaching paradigm for respectful interreligious dialogue, which is never about win/lose, right/wrong profiling and divisiveness.

Among my greatest lessons from the Quran was to be reminded to have faith, seek the truth, praise God, pray, forgive, be kind, be peaceful and take care of people who are most vulnerable — those who are oppressed and often forgotten.

Perhaps the commentary found in the conclusion of my Quran says it best:

“What can we do to make Allah’s light shine forth through the darkness around us? We must first let it shine in our own selves. With the light in the niche of our inmost hearts we can walk with steps both firm and sure: We can humbly visit the comfortless and guide their steps. Not we but the light will guide. But oh the joy of being found worthy to bear the torch and to say to our brethren: I too was in darkness, comfortless, and behold, I have found comfort and joy in the grace divine."

After reading the Quran during Ramadan, I am again convinced that there are more commonalities between and among religions than there are differences that isolate and divide.

[RichInOC]

I think folks can learn from the Koran, or any scriptures from other religions than their own, without adopting them as holy writ.

[Cronos]

No one accepts their claim these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, -- they say they do, no one comments on whether or not that is correct.

the mohammedans assert that God is One, that He is merciful, and that He will judge mankind. If so, they are correct in so asserting. as AB said -- the worship only one god. No comments on that god being our God or not. Even satanists are monotheists -- their "god" is one...

I cannot do so for the Koran, or it's prophet... and I will lay odds that you will not be able to either. -- nobody does, that's why we in orthodoxy have been fighting Islam for 2000 years while during the crimean war the Anglicans, Evangelicals and Baptists in the UK stated that "the Mohammedan has beliefs similar to ours unlike the paganism of the Orthodox" and other said "the Turk has a quiet, reflective religion. The Turk is a Unitarian" (Read the book on the Crimea by Orlando Figes) -- this was due to the various non-orthodoxy groups being separated from Islam geographically by the Orthodox and Catholic nations who faced the brunt of these attacks. It was ignorance yes.

[Cronos]

I disagree that they profess the faith of Abraham, but to deny that they CLAIM to profess it is folly.

Exactly.

[Cronos]

I disagree that they profess the faith of Abraham, but to deny that they CLAIM to profess it is folly.

I would say that while the mohammedans acknowledge and worship one singular unique god, they appear to misunderstand him so grossly as to render him unrecognizable. They worship falsely. Furthermore, that to the extent their misunderstanding of the deity comes from a non-human source, that source is NOT God. They did not get their ideas regarding God from YHWH. They got their ideas from some other entity. Whatever it was that was whispering in Mad Mo's ear, it wasn't YHWH.

Exactly.