On Christmas Eve we read in the news of the burning of a Christmas tree in the mainly-Christian Syrian town of Suqaylabiyah, near the city of Hama. The people who were apparently responsible were characterised as Islamicist, making this a deliberate attempt to provoke a backlash, perhaps with the intention of marginalising the country’s Christian minority and uniting the Moslem majority around a more assertive Islamicist agenda.
Well firstly it was encouraging to see how swiftly the new government responded – both to apprehend those responsible but also with a clear statement of the right of everyone in Syria – one of the most religiously mixed countries in the world – to have their faith respected. It was a real test for the new government of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham to see if they were true to their word. And so far, so good, though of course only time will tell.
But secondly there are things here for we Christians to think about too, about our perspective of others. We are fortunate to live in a country where one can practise one’s religion freely, but what is our attitude to the symbols of other religions than our own? When anti-Islam group, the Danish Patriots, publicly burned a copy of the Qur’an, there were those who felt this was a valuable statement of western values – freedom of speech and the rights of the individual. I couldn’t argue with those values, but I felt a deep sorrow for those whose cherished symbols were being so publicly abused.
The fact that we are religious people and followers of a Lord who put loving your neighbour way above any kind of doctrinal purity, should inspire us to value the things that our neighbours consider dear and feel the pain when those things are desecrated, particularly when our neighbours are a minority trying to find their way in a different society from the one in which their faith originated.
It was lovely to read on Christmas morning a piece in the Guardian by Zeyneb Sayılgan from the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies in Baltimore, about the role of the Virgin Mary in Islam. “She is one of the most honoured women in Islam and the Qur’an dedicates the entire chapter 19 to show her high status”, she writes. “She is special, not only because she was the mother of Jesus but because of her exemplary spirituality, worship and service to God”. So one of our most cherished religious icons reaches across religious boundaries. “Mary is a symbol of the enduring relationship between the Abrahamic religions”, writes Ms Sayılgan.
Christians and Muslims together make up more than half of the world’s population. I hope that, as we honour Mary’s vital role in the incarnation and eventual salvation of the world, so we can celebrate together what it means to be a religious people today and work, in the words of Ms Sayılgan, “for more mutual understanding and the betterment of our human family”.
Read about burning the Christmas tree here. Read the Guardian story here.