(Translation from French)
Your Holiness,
Fourteen centuries ago the Prophet Mohammed succeeded his brother Jesus in their mission to bring back man to God and God to man. Since then, Muslim and Christian Arabs have recognized and accepted each other and have built their respective temples. The Caliph Omar visiting the Church of the Resurrection officialised this recognition, and since then all the churches of the lands of Islam have never ceased to ring their bells without raising the hostility of Muslims. The Arab poet Abul Ala ‘al Ma’arri left us a poem that all the Arab pupils have learned in their childhood:
Filladhiqiyyati dhajjatun,
beyne Ahamada wel Messih
hadha his bi jarassin yaduqqu
dhaka wa fi Mi’dhanatin yassih
In Latakia, there is a big noise,
between Ahmad and Jesus.
The latter rings the bell of his church;
the former calls his followers from the top of his minaret.
That was around the year 1000, which means that a thousand years ago the Christians were allowed to enjoy hearing the call of the church.
Meanwhile, Islam spread in the European lands. “The Turk was around here”, but the Balkans churches which were built before the Turk’s arrival still show that the Turks has left them standing and did nothing to silence them.
Today, churches are competing in height with the mosques in the old lands of Islam that are Egypt and Syria.
More than three centuries after Montesquieu, the question is still raised: “How can one be Persian?” (How can one be Muslim?)
Your Holiness
Could you inform Christians all over the world of this simple fact, that in Middle Ages, churches rang their bells in the lands of Islam, and remind the Swiss, among others, and the Christian people, that they fight the wrong enemy and that Muslims will be the last ones to witness for Jesus Christ in front of an advanced and apparently irreversible de-Christianization process.
It happened this week that Muslim and Christian calendars coincided. Let’s make, Your Holiness, this calendar coincidence a pretext to bring about a renewed spiritual rapprochement and a complicity in the endeavour to bring God closer to man in a world that is becoming ONE more than ever.
We pray God to give you a long life in order to carry out this Mission of Love that Jesus Christ has constantly preached till his return to God.
December 28, 2009
Signature:
Rachid Benaissa. Sociologist, former UNESCO official
