SPEAKING
FREELY Opium at the British
Library By Abdul Rahman Azzam
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LONDON - One wonders
what Karl Marx would have made of it all. Buried
in Highgate Cemetery in London, Marx had lived in
the city for many years, and it was in the august
reading rooms of the British Library that he had
once declared that religion was the
opium of the people.
The ambitions of the organizers of the
Sacred Exhibition, which opened late last month
and will run until September 23, is certainly as
dramatic as the enormous black promotional banners
that adorned the entrance. Subtitled "Discover
What We Share", the exhibition was, the press
release assured us, a "groundbreaking event" as
rare examples of Jewish, Christian and Muslim
sacred texts were presented alongside each other.
The focus of Sacred is summed up by the
phrase Ahl al-Kitab (People of the Book),
which is used in Muslim tradition to acknowledge
and embrace both the Jewish and Christian as
communities that received scriptures revealed by
God before the revelation to the Prophet Mohammed.
The sacred texts were displayed
thematically in order to explore the commonalities
and differences among the faiths, with the aim of
demonstrating how these three faiths have
co-existed and influenced one another and how they
have shaped much of European civilization and
culture.
Certainly, the works were truly
magnificent and inspiring. The Lisbon Bible, which
was completed in 1482, testified to the rich
cultural life that the Jews experienced before
their expulsion from Muslim Spain by the
conquering Isabella and Ferdinand.
Next to
it was displayed a copy of the New Testament
written in Constantinople in the mid-10th century,
and to complete the Abrahamic trilogy was probably
the most magnificent Koran in the British Library,
presented to the Sultan Baybars in Cairo around
1305.
It was fascinating and illuminating
to trace stories, characters and moral teachings
that the three great faiths share - the story of
the Prophet Joseph was particularly striking -
while recognizing and acknowledging the
differences of interpretation and emphasis in
detail.
The Islamic version, for example,
while faithfully following the well-known plot and
narrative of the story, was interwoven by frequent
reminders of the presence of God, for not even the
beauty of the story - and the Koran tells us that
the story of Joseph is the most beautiful of
stories - could be allowed to distract the reader
from the powerful message of divine transcendence
that permeates the Koran.
None of the
Abrahamic religions is, of course, monolithic, and
there exist shades of opinion relating to
interpretation of doctrine and rituals. In that
regard, it was a wonderful opportunity to see
displayed a sample of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which
are of unique historical and religious
significance as they are virtually the only known
surviving biblical documents written before the
2nd century AD. The particular piece on display
was part of the Psalms and dated from AD 50.
Similarly noteworthy was a sample of the
Commentary of Saint Ephraim, a 4th-century
manuscript that contains fascinating hints about a
lost early version of the Gospels.
One
emerges from the exhibition dazzled, awed and
humbled by the beauty of what had been witnessed.
The texts on display are truly inspiring -
ranging from Holy Books to amulets, to tiny books
of devotions and prayers. The painstaking detail
involved in the calligraphy and illumination is a
reflection on the one hand of a sincere piety and
humility, and on the other of a magnificent
glorification of God that is truly timeless. One
emerges from the exhibition humbled by the glory
of the Sacred, and mildly curious as to what Karl
Marx would have made of it.
There is no
doubt that the aim of this exhibition is both
ambitious and noble. By displaying the sacred
texts of the three faiths side by side, the
organizers were deliberately innovative and
challenging. The question is, did they succeed in
their primary aim, which was to build mutual
understanding among the faiths?
Undoubtedly the shared stories - that of
Joseph or of the Virgin Mary being the most
striking - were the sacred bridges over which the
three faiths traversed, and the fact that they did
so with such ease and tranquility was a testimony
to how diligent the organizers of Sacred were.
One would anticipate that the display of
such shared sacred stories would generate an
increased sense of curiosity among the viewers,
and to an extent they do, but as one walks through
the exhibition, the curiosity is gradually diluted
by a greater and more profound sensation, which is
one of comfort and tranquility - a realization
that what mattered above all were not the
divergences and the differences among the stories
but the shared spiritual values that transcended
them.
Abdul Rahman Azzam is
founder and director of Bookchase, a
print-on-demand company based in the United
Kingdom. He obtained his DPhil in Islamic history
from Oxford University and is the author of
Rumi: Kingdom of Joy (2001) and Saladin
(2007). This article is distributed by the
Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be
accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.
(Copyright 2007 CGNews. Published by
permission.)
Speaking Freely is an
Asia Times Online feature that allows guest
writers to have their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
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