washington | Jordan’s king believes Jews can play a key role in his campaign to win back the Muslim street.
“The Amman message,” initiated by Abdullah II, brought together scholars from the eight main streams of Islam in July to issue edicts that marginalize terrorists who purport to act in the name of Islam — particularly al-Qaida and its leader, Osama bin Laden.
The next step is to bring the message to Jews and Christians, according to Joseph Lumbard, the young American Muslim hired by the king to coordinate outreach.
“We want to get beyond the idea of a clash of civilizations to a dialogue of civilizations,” Lumbard said. “We would like to expand the term Judeo-Christian tradition to Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition.”
Abdullah and his Palestinian-born queen, Rania, met recently with Pope Benedict XVI and followed it up with a policy speech at Catholic University in Washington. This week, Abdullah is to speak on “Judaism and Islam: Beyond Tolerance” to more than 80 rabbis from around the United States gathered in Washington.
The speech will draw on Koranic verses and Jewish readings that counsel accommodation and respect for other monotheistic faiths.
More than any other Arab leader — and even more than his father, the late King Hussein — Abdullah has attached his fate to the West. He has opened Jordanian markets and plans to introduce Western democratic reforms.
Like his father, Abdullah also has fostered the only truly warm Arab-Israeli peace, and he met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the United Nations last week.
Abdullah’s solution is to use the Arab street’s hardiest vehicle — Islam — to move it toward his vision of moderation. The July assembly in Amman of 180 Islamic scholars from 45 countries concluded with 17 of the most senior scholars among issuing religious edicts outlining two principles: Fatwas issued by Muslims not formally trained in Islamic are not legitimate; and Muslims must refrain from calling other Muslims apostates.
The two statements were clearly aimed at al-Qaida and its leaders. Lumbard said the pedigree of the scholars at the Amman meeting lent heft to their fatwas in a way that multiple other efforts to moderate Islam — many of them stemming from Western capitals — could not.
Whether the effort resonates remains to be seen. Lumbard acknowledged that even those scholars, respected as they are, have become remote from an Arab street succored by the Internet and satellite television. The next step, he said, was to compete in those fields with the radicals who advocate terrorism.
Abdullah, 43, places much stock in youth, since half of Jordan’s population is 18 or younger. His first stop in the United States was a meeting with a group of high school students from two Washington schools, the Hebrew Academy in Rockville, Md., and the Islamic Academy in Fairfax, Va.
Significantly, the most skeptical students at the gathering appeared to be Muslims from the Saudi-backed academy. When one young woman in a scarf expressed doubts that Abdullah’s moderation reflected the Arab world’s “general consensus,” Queen Rania struggled for a response, and could cite only an outpouring of Arab sympathy for Americans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
By contrast, the Jewish students were clearly impressed.
“He’s very courageous for taking such a message,” said Moshe Broder, a senior at the Hebrew Academy. “He’s a pioneer.”
Marc Gopin, an Orthodox rabbi and a religion professor at George Mason University in Virginia who has helped organize Abdullah’s address to rabbis, says Jews should see the July fatwas as a crucial first step in marginalizing extremism.
“This helps cut off terrorism’s legs, because terrorism is based on fatwas,” he said. “That may be dissatisfying from the Israeli-Palestinian perspective, but it’s an admirable goal and one we should support.”