Divine Hospitality Arabic Version
Overview
Daou, Fadi and Tabbara, Nayla: Divine Hospitality, Christian and Muslim theologies of the other (Arabic). Lebanon, Saint Paul Publications/Adyan, 2011, 247 p.
فادي ضو ونايلا طبارة: الرحابة الإلهيّة: لاهوت الآخر في المسيحيّة والإسلام. لبنان، المكتبة البولسية/أديان، 2011
This book, in Arabic language, presents to readers, Christians, Muslims and others, a clear presentation of the question of religious diversity from a faith-based perspective. In other words, it tries to clarify what Christian faith on the one hand and Muslim faith on the other, say about religious otherness and about the relation between God and a believer from a different religion.
The Book is also available in French : L’Hospitalité divine: L’autre dans le dialogue des théologies chrétienne et musulmane. Lit Verlag. 2014.
Abstract & Findings
Important Findings
This book is not a discourse for the other, with diluted truths to achieve empathy and mutual acceptance, in as much as it is a theological construct targeted first of all at the believer, putting him/her vis-a-vis his/her own belief.. The challenge presented by this book to the believer is to accept to move forward towards the other, not based on a static religious identity used as a shield but based on a conviction that the spiritual message carried by the other may not be estranged from God’s plan.
The Authors
Professor of science of religions and Islamic studies.
Director of the Institute of Citizenship and Diversity Management.
Professor of Interreligious dialogue and Geopolitics of religion; Chairperson and CEO of Adyan foundation
Access
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I would like to underline two points: one, that Adyan foundation and the publications of Prof. Adel Theodore Khoury, among which the book Divine Hospitality: the theology of the other in Christianity and Islam, of Fr. Dr. Fadi Daou and Dr. Nayla Tabbara, meet my own continuous endeavor to assert the importance of openness between Islam and Christianity, between Muslims and Christians, from a faith based and not folkloric perspective, with a scientific approach and not a spontaneous populist one. What struck me in the book’s conclusion is its background: the book is a structured theological word, directed at the believer to put him in front of his belief, because the ignorance that hurts the relations between religions is the ignorance of one’s own belief, more that it is the ignorance of the other’s belief. The second point is that I read with a lot of interest the Islamic part, and I found it written from a believer’s perspective, excavating the Islamic history, the Qur’an and the verses and positions that stress on the openness of Islam and its acceptance of the other and of other religions, and that was a big source of joy for me.
(Published in Al Hayat, 29 December 2012)
Prof. Mohammad Amin Farchoukh - President of Makassed Islamic University -
This book allows its readers to discover an example of theological reflection (Christian or Muslim) that integrates the “burning question of the other” in the search for understanding God. It is enough to mention the theory of the Plenitude in Christ that opens paths for new answers concerning the later arrival of Mohammad. (…) Without it being mentioned, it is a true friendship that seems to exist between the authors, doubled by a strong dose of humility, modesty and confidence in the work of God within each human, because in the end, God remains unknowable in His Totality and Sovereignty and His salvation plan. Accepting this theological fact means accepting the divine presence in the members of other religious traditions. A true, active and sanctifying presence.
(Published in Pax et Concordia, Journal of the Catholic church in Algeria, n° 21, January-March 2015)
Fr. José Maria Cantal Rivas -