Whenever I return to Jordan, I see the world in a new light. My eyes find the beautiful minarets that point towards heaven. My ears measure the hours of the day with each call to prayer. My mind knows the Arabic words, reminding all who hear that God is great. That God is one and the same—the same God that has been worshipped in Jordan’s Christian churches going back to the ministry of Jesus himself.
“Is God exclusive?” I was asked by Dr. Renee Hattar, director of the Royal Institute of Inter-Faith Studies (RIIFS), based in Jordan’s capital city of Amman. “Allah, meaning God in Arabic, is a universal word, and so the meaning of the message is what counts—if you believe that God is Love, then you love your neighbor.”
(Church and mosque in city of As-Salt in Jordan)
Love your neighbor could very well be the unofficial slogan of Jordan, the small and peaceable kingdom in the heart of the Middle East. Too often defined by the conflict that surrounds its borders, Jordan is also home to all three of the world’s great monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Jesus, Moses, and Mohammed all walked on Jordan’s soil, preached their beliefs, and prayed to their God.
(Mosque in Jordan)
“In Spain, we talk of tres culturas—the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish,” Dr. Hattar explained to me, “but in Jordan, we talk about one culture—only different religions. We are one Arab culture, with one Arab language. The western world always wants to divide these identities, but that’s not how it works for us. In Jordan, one never asks, ‘What religion are you?’ We are Jordanians. We have Christian children with Muslim names, and vice versa. We have Bedouins where one half of the tribe is Christian, and the other is Muslim. But it’s one family.”
Promoting Jordan’s unique interfaith harmony to the outside world is a major goal of the Royal Institute of Inter-Faith Studies (RIIFS,) a non-profit dedicated to intercultural and inter-religious peace. But how does that work really? At a time when the world seems more and more divided, partisan, tribal (and even hateful), how can the hearts and minds of average Jordanians bridge the divide?
“We try and emphasize the spirituality of religion,” said Dr. Hattar. “The words that a Christian person uses can hold the same meaning as say, a Sufi writer in Islam. We like to focus on what we share in common, and to recognize the shared heritage of holy sites.”
(Church in Mount Nebo, Jordan)
Nowhere is this shared heritage more apparent than atop Mount Nebo, where prophet Moses is buried. The holy site attracts pilgrims from Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, who all revere Moses as a prophet. The Franciscan Monastery that stands there today may be Catholic, but all are welcome.
“I’m proud of the love and respect we have between different religions here in Jordan, Father Ammar Shahin, a Jordanian-born Catholic monk told me.