Explaining Interfaith Dialogue in the Muslim World

In the last two decades, several Muslim states and civil society groups have embraced interfaith dialogue as a means of engagement with non-Muslims, especially with Christians. Why do these actors initiate interfaith dialogue? Why do they follow different interfaith dialogue strategies? This article...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Politics and religion
Main Author: Kayaoǧlu, Turan (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Cambridge Univ. Press [2015]
In: Politics and religion
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
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Summary:In the last two decades, several Muslim states and civil society groups have embraced interfaith dialogue as a means of engagement with non-Muslims, especially with Christians. Why do these actors initiate interfaith dialogue? Why do they follow different interfaith dialogue strategies? This article argues that Islamic actors initiate interfaith dialogue to signal their moderate stance to powerful others who are concerned with Islamic radicalization and violence. These Islamic interfaith actors follow different strategies because of their interfaith theology (ideas about the legitimacy of religious others) and the nature of state-religion interaction (secular versus religious states) in their home countries. To support its argument, this article examines three Muslim interfaith initiatives: the Gülen Movement in Turkey and beyond (Sunni-Sufi, a civil society-led project), Jordan's A Common Word initiative (Sunni, a semi-governmental project), and Saudi Arabia's interfaith efforts (Sunni-Wahhabi, a state-led project).
ISSN:1755-0491
Contains:Enthalten in: Politics and religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S1755048315000267