Nostra Aetate and Catholic-Muslim Relations: Feat. Professor Gabriel Reynolds

In this episode, Avraham Burg speaks with Gabriel Reynolds, Professor of Theology at Notre Dame, about his personal and academic journey from suburban Connecticut to becoming a leading scholar of Islamic studies and Comparative Theology. Reynolds shares how his roots in the region, travels to the Middle East, and academic curiosity led him to study the Quran from a historical-critical perspective, emphasizing its engagement with Biblical traditions. They also explore the theological and sociopolitical complexities of Islam’s relationship with Christianity and Judaism, the integration of Muslims in the West, and the evolution of Western Islam, particularly in the United States. Throughout, Reynolds highlights the importance of interreligious understanding grounded in human dignity, while acknowledging deep theological differences between faith traditions. 

With gratitude to the production team - Daniel Schwake, Gabriel Mitchell, Ben Wallick, Nathan Steinmeyer and David Turjman for making Jerusalem Talks possible.

Transcript

Jerusalem Talks ND

Season 3 Episode 1

Host: Avraham Burg

Featured Guest: Gabriel Reynolds

Avraham Burg: Peace on you, Professor Reynolds. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Thank you. Thank you. Very happy to be with you, Avrum. Thanks for having me. 

Avraham Burg: You are a wonder for me, or a mystery for me, okay? You’re teaching, I mean, you dived into Quranic, Islamic content, horizons, values, reading, teaching in the most Catholic university in North America. Will you build the bridge for me?

Gabriel Reynolds:  Well, not everyone would agree that Notre Dame is the most Catholic university, but that’s a whole other topic. We don’t want to speak about that. That’s a whole other debate in Notre Dame and the Catholic Church. I’m really, yeah, really happy to share a little bit about my story and my interest in Islamic studies, but it’s not really exciting. You know, I grew up in the suburbs in the northeast of the U.S. in Connecticut. Suburban town. Not very exciting. I went to public school. The only sort of distinctive sort of connection to the Middle East was through my mother’s family. So actually, her background, her grandparents, were from Lebanon, Syria. So, you know, they emigrated at a time when…

Avraham Burg: And came when to North America?

Gabriel Reynolds:  Yeah, in the late 19th century. So, there was no Lebanon or Syria, at least as modern states. It’s all the Ottoman Empire. 

Avraham Burg: Sure.

Gabriel Reynolds: They came from the region of Mount Hermon originally, so they were Eastern Christians, Eastern Orthodox, and, you know, by the time they got to my generation, as you probably know, I mean, with many of those early Arab immigrants to the United States, very quickly, the next generation they are speaking English, they have forgotten Arabic. It’s only the food and a couple of cuss words, a couple of bad words that made it to me. But it left, you know, this kind of interesting kind of wrinkle within the family story, which I wanted to figure out what is that all about. And also, you know, at that time, there was already pressure. So, this is, I graduated high school, 1991, there was already pressure in sort of the circles I ran in, kind of suburban northeast America kind of left leaning circles in that world, of what was already a very blue state. You know, to be more diverse, more interesting, you know, don’t just be like a normal white guy. You know, “that’s just a normal Catholic white guy.” That’s not interesting. And so, I think there was psychological pressure there also in a way, but in any case. Yeah, I was like, let me at least learn the Arabic language. So after freshman year…

Avraham Burg: Arabic language was not from home? (In Arabic) “do you speak Arabic?”

Gabriel Reynolds: We didn’t speak any Arabic at home. Nothing. Just my mother knew some things like (Yel 3an Denak) “may your religion be cursed.” These sort of nice Arabic expressions. She didn’t know what it means. 

Avraham Burg: That’s a nice way to express your words as you call it. 

Gabriel Reynolds: She would say that, you know, she had no idea what it meant, but she heard it from her father. So just, you know, a handful of things. And then the food, you know, Kibbeh and wara arish, and some food.

Avraham Burg: So, let’s jump. You opened a little window here when you spoke about diversity, et cetera, of the time. It’s a beginning of America going fragmented itself into identities and into multilayers of personalities. But of the United States of today, what does that mean in America of today, which is not that tolerant, publicly speaking, of people coming from the Muslim or Arabic hemisphere to be a professional in the field? How does that work in the real world?

Gabriel Reynolds: It’s been very complicated, Avrum, because my sort of vision and inspiration traveling for the first time to the Middle East in the summer of, I guess ‘92, I went to Jordan, actually visited Jerusalem that summer as well for the first time. It was all about, like, discovering the other, I mean, discovering my family history, but they were Christians. So in terms of Muslims in the Middle East, you know, that was the whole vibe for me was from the beginning, you know, learning more about Islam, respecting Islam, discovering Islam, and then bringing back this message back to, you know, my suburban community, almost all what, we had about the north side of the town had a lot of, a lot of Jews, but mostly in my part of town, mostly Catholics like telling people, listen, these people are great, they’re better than us in some ways in the Middle East. So that was the vibe. But once you get into academia and in Islamic studies, there’s a million other things going on. So, you know, there you have questions of, “Oh, is this guy an Orientalist? Is this or that thing Islamophobic?” So suddenly, you know, once I went into graduate school already, I was encountered with those kinds of things as well. 

Avraham Burg: Again, I want to say a little bit on this, okay? We all know that the famous Nostra Aetate “at our time,” which is the Catholic opening itself. I would say, to a nowadays world, when you look at Nostra Aetate, not in the sense of the Vatican, Vatican II, Nostra Aetate at our time, I mean, literally speaking, how do you describe the relationship between, let’s say, big Christianity, big Islam in North America?

Gabriel Reynolds: Yes. So, if you permit me to travel back to, you know, the 1960s, end of the Vatican Council when that document... 

Avraham Burg: ‘65, I think. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Exactly, yeah. Right at the end, Paul VI was already the Pope, John XXIII had died in the middle of the Council. I mean, in some ways it was a radically different world, and, you know, the engagement with non-Christian religions of course was revolutionary. In that document in particular, it also comes up at least in one other document, Lumen Gentium. But, you know, the vibe in Catholic Europe and the American bishops were important in some of those documents as well. Although I think Nostra Aetate was mostly the European bishops. But, you know, it was very much, you know, there’s been the disaster of the Shoah. Collectively Catholics in Europe have responsibility for this. And so, there’s just this deep soul searching. And as you probably you know, Avrum, the story of that document, you know, was quite complicated because there were Arab bishops who were like, “listen, we also have this situation in Palestine, Israel.” We hadn’t had the ‘67 war yet, but obviously we had the foundation of Israel in ‘48. “If you just only, this whole council, you only speak about the church’s relationship with the Jews, and you don’t speak at least about Islam, You know, this is going to be a situation for our folks back home.” There’s all sorts of things going on politically, socially at that time, which are different today.

Avraham Burg: I’ll come back to that later, to the whole realm of the interreligious dialogue, or two monologues communicating with each other a bit later. But I will ask something that if it is too simplistic, tell me “Avrum, drop it.” Okay? Is it possible that that kind of, I would say almost dedicating your life to something like that, and the corpus of your work is immense, and you go to places very intimate. The case of this one, the Quran is a homily of this one and that one. I mean, you dive in. Is it possible, in Hebrew we say dafka, rather in a Catholic university rather than in any other place in North America, because I’m sure that a conversation like this is very, very difficult in some rabbinical seminars or religious Jewish universities in North America. 

Gabriel Reynolds: That’s a terrific question. In principle, 95% of my studies are not theological. So, you know, I was trained in a religion department, religious studies department in a secular university and never went to any kind of Catholic school, went to public school then private secular schools for college and graduate school and in that context, in principle, one would think a historical critical study like, you know, what I’ve done for better or for worse in most of my work should be totally cool like that should be the context in which it’s kind of no holds barred. What really happened at the origins of Christianity or Islam? You know, what is the evidence of a good philological reading of this or that text? Or physical evidence, like some inscription, this or that? How does this sort of revise our understanding and maybe dispel the myths that believers tell? So, I mean, in principle, in that context should be cool. But in fact, as you know, there’s lots of politics in the university. There are issues that are more about 21st century than the 7th century.

Avraham Burg: I heard that once Woodrow Wilson said that when he was fed up with the politics of academia he ran for presidency. So yeah, go on. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Yeah, that rings true. That rings true. Yeah, and in a Catholic context, everything just gets more complicated but really more interesting and exciting. I think in some ways the possibilities are greater. There are different doors that can be opened and can pass through them and have different conversations, different conversation partners. Because, especially in the modern Catholic university, where historical critical study of the Bible is, you know, not only allowed but encouraged, so you can continue with that kind of historical critical work. But then you can add to that theological spiritual questions. And in fact, you know, even though most of my research is, you know, just historical critical stuff, in my teaching and, you know, in various meetings, seminars, all this stuff, I’m really interested in talking theology with Muslims as well. 

Avraham Burg: Let’s dive. Okay. We set the pool. Let’s jump in. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Okay. Okay. 

Avraham Burg: When you take the Quran in your hands, okay, read it, beside the fact that it’s a beautiful text, I mean, multi-layers and associations and images and it is a fantastic text, but when you read it, is that you read it as a religious text or historic one? 

Gabriel Reynolds: As a historic one. 

Avraham Burg: So, when you open this book of history, it is not, I mean, it is religion for some, it’s historic curiosity for you. What are you looking for? You’re looking, for example, for Christian motives in the Quran. What are you looking for as history? 

Gabriel Reynolds: I’m looking to understand the text as much as possible in terms of the context in which it was written and in terms of its internal logic. So, things on the outside that are going around which left sort of traces in the text, but also the external logic, which basically means, you know, what were the goals of the author or authors? 

Avraham Burg: Give me an example. I’m a first-year student, not yet there. I hardly read the Bible. OK, give me an example of something, a detail like this. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Sure. Yeah. That’s a great, great question to push further on that to get to something more tangible. So, in terms of, sort of, the external context in a first-year class, I would say, you know, “okay friends, let’s start by speaking about what was the world of the 7th century, early 7th century Middle East like?” So, let’s think about what was especially the various dimensions of the Church, of Christian tradition, of theological controversies within the church in the Middle East, but then also Judaism, less in number, but clearly also has an impact on the text. So, then we could sort of say, you know, okay, this is the world in which the Quran emerged. You know, everyone is interested in engaging or interacting in the world around them. So, how is the text doing that? So, to get a little bit more concrete, because that’s still rather vague. Why, for example, does the Quran tell stories that have to do with Jesus or Christianity, but are not in the New Testament? For example, Jesus creating a bird from clay and bringing it to life with his breath. So, that would be one example which we could speak about. That story is not in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Why is it in the Quran? 

Avraham Burg: And you continue on with the Hadith and the oral tradition, or you stop with the written text. 

Gabriel Reynolds: To me, the Hadith is really a discrete topic.

Avraham Burg: Let’s tell our audience what is this Hadith. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Yeah, great point. Yes, it’s essential to begin there. So, if we look at Islam as a theological system, it all begins with the question of divine guidance. God guides the world basically in three ways. One are things in nature. So, signs in nature, also in the human person. The second is by delivering a message to a prophet, which the prophet simply repeats. So that’s the Quran. 

Avraham Burg: which is Muhammad

Gabriel Reynolds: Prophet is Muhammad, and the scripture or the revelation is the Quran. And according to Islamic theology, Muhammad has simply received the message and passed it on. But then there’s the third, which is the prophet himself as a source of guidance in what he says and what he does. And that principle generally is called Sunna, S.U.N.N.A. And the Sunna is recorded in short, usually short, written reports which are called Hadiths. So, the hadith represent basically the prophet’s guidance. 

Avraham Burg: Which is the oral, in a way, the oral tradition. Yes, a lot of it became written, but it’s not the real divine text. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Correct. It is fundamentally distinct, even on a theological level from the Quran, because God gave the Quran to humanity from a Muslim point of view, not only as sort of instructions and guidance, but also as a sacred text, which is recited as part of ritual prayer. So, the Quran is really interesting actually. So, it does have guidance and instructions, but it is also the way in which God wants to be worshiped and adored is through the recitation of this text. This Muslim prayer is, some other prayers as well, but principally recitation of Quran. Hadith is fundamentally different. It just has the sort of instruction part to it. It is not a sacred text that is recited. 

Avraham Burg: It is not what. It’s the how to. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Well said. 

Avraham Burg: Okay. So, let’s stay with our text, okay? We have three major monotheistic religions, as Muhammad called them, the people of the book, because each and one of these monotheistic, what nowadays is called in a politically correct language, Abrahamic religions, has a book at its midst, okay? However, there is a difference. You have the Bible, which is the Old Testament, the Jewish one. The Christians do accept the Old Testament and then have an add-on of the New Testament. So, the common denominator between Judaism and Christianity, at least about part of it, the book. Islam does not accept the Bible, the Old Testament. Yes, it accepts some of the stories, mythologies, teachings, et cetera, ethics, but not the book itself. So now, when you start to teach, do you teach it from a point of view, “I want to teach you in order to develop a dialogue: or in order to understand the disagreement? Because there is no common denominator between Judaism, and Christianity, and Islam when it comes to the text? 

Gabriel Reynolds: I think maybe the best way, for me at least, to answer that question is just to say a word or two about the Quran and the way it engages with stories from the Bible. So exactly as you said, Islam sort of the community does not accept the Bible, either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament as authentic scripture and therefore Muslims generally, of course there are exceptions, a Muslim can do whatever he or she wants, but generally do not read the Bible as a source of guidance, but the Quran itself is engaging really throughout the text and every single chapter or Surah with the Bible, in my opinion, and yet it’s clearly doing that in what I would call a sectarian context. It’s very concerned with, to use a fancy word, the incredulity, so the lack of affirmation of Muhammad’s prophethood in the people around him, principally the Jews and the Christians. And so, there’s that sort of sectarian flavor in the, now my metaphor is going to break down, shouldn’t use the word flavor. There’s this sectarian vibe in the way that the Quran engages with biblical stories and traditions. Almost without exception, it doesn’t simply report a biblical story, let’s say, you know, Moses in Pharaoh’s court. 

Avraham Burg: We have the slaughter of the son of Abraham, but in our case, it’s Isaac; in their case, it’s Ishmael. It’s the same story with a different emphasis. So, there is a dialogue here, there is a conversation. 

Gabriel Reynolds: I would push back, Avrum, and say, if we take that story, which appears at the very end of Quran 37, obviously in the Bible, Genesis 22, in the Quranic version it’s even more. The story itself is changed in profound ways. One of course, Isaac is not mentioned. It suggests that it’s Ishmael. That itself is profoundly important. It’s interesting too in what that says about the way the Genesis story is read and the character of Ishmael, who of course appears elsewhere in the Quran, but even the story has Ishmael, this appears in rabbinic traditions, but has Ishmael as a willing participant in the sacrifice. And then what you find in Genesis 22 of the world being blessed through Abraham, the nations being blessed through Abraham, is not mentioned. Instead, the conclusion is simply God providing the sacrificial animal, which is called a great sacrifice and of course later Muslims will take this and connect it with the Hajj or the Eid, the Eid al-Adha ritual. So even the fabric of the stories themselves are different. 

Avraham Burg: You mentioned chapter 22, so let’s go for another chapter 22. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Okay. 

Avraham Burg: Matthew 22, okay? In which Jesus lays the ground for separation between church and state, right? He says, “Give… render God what’s God and give Caesar what’s Caesar,” which is the cornerstone of the entire, I would say, the Christian world structures of separation between church and state. If we dive into it, we’ll say, “Listen, the character of the founder was an opposition.” I mean, Jesus Christ was in three oppositions to the Herodian regime, to the rabbinical establishment, to the Herodian regime, and to the Roman Empire. So of course, he was in opposition, and he made a separation between what’s God, which is he belonged to, and what’s the state, which is his opponent. What’s the case with church and state, or no, religion and state in Islam vis-à-vis the image of the founder of Rasul Allah, the emissary of God, Muhammad. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Oh, what a fascinating topic. I mean, on the one hand, I can’t help but mentioning that this stark or decisive division between church and state that many folks, especially in the US, but also Europe, I think, they just take for granted that this is kind of a Western thing. In the US, it’s connected really with the history of Protestantism. Obviously, the American founders were almost without exception Protestant. Now, someone’s going to mention in the comments… 

Avraham Burg: And escaping tyrant religion in Europe. It’s not just Protestantism, it’s also... 

Gabriel Reynolds: Yes. Yes. Yes. It is a current of Protestantism. Opposed to the way in which Anglicanism with the close relationship between church and state in England was carried out. Obviously, there were Anglicans among the US, but generally there’s something there in the division that’s distinctly Protestant; probably distinctly American as well. Obviously if you go into other contexts, even into the 20th century, but certainly if you go further back, you’ll find a much more intimate relationship between Caesar and God or church and state. 

Avraham Burg: We have many new Caesars recently, but that’s a different topic. No comment. 

Gabriel Reynolds: When it comes to Islam, When it comes to Islam, I mean, it’s just incredibly complicated and it’s really one of those topics that is not, I mean, neither the Quran nor the Hadith actually lay out one, two, three, how Islamic societies are to organize themselves in the political or sort of legal judicial realm. I mean, it’s just not, it’s not there. Shiism, for example, Shiite Islam…

Avraham Burg: Shiite is the sect, the other Muslim grouping, which is not the Sunni we mentioned, but it’s the one mainly, let’s say today, half Iraq, Iran, some of Lebanese and few other places, and the word Shia is a section, faction actually. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Yeah, so party or faction. Of course, sometimes sect in English, at least in American English can suggest something negative. But you mean sect just because it’s one of the two main, main movements, Sunnism being the other one. And the way that Shiism develops in terms of leadership and politics is really different. They’re working more or less with the same material: Quran and Hadith. But Shiite vision has to do with, you know, this divinely inspired sort of illuminated leader called an Imam who’s the source of guidance in politics and religion. We don’t have to go into too much detail. And then Sunnism works out things in a different way. Actually, in the early stage, what, the Sunni view of politics is different than how it develops later. And then you get into the modern period where you know Sunnis and Shiites have to figure out how to be Islamic in the context of a modern nation state. I didn’t answer your question at all. I kind of avoided it, but it’s very messy. It’s very complicated because there’s no roadmap in the Quran. 

Avraham Burg: You are a professor, and I would like to simplify it because I would like to extract something. I will say that if the image, I mean, not just the image, the molding image of the founder of Jesus Christ and Christianity impacted the whole set of relationships that, yes, when you go to so many places, the bells are ringing on Sunday and many national flags have crossed among them, and when you read the national anthems, it mentions Christian values or Christian history. That’s right, but the constitutional structure is mainly distancing a church and state; religion and state.

Gabriel Reynolds: Yes. Yes.

Avraham Burg: When you go to 50 some Muslim populated societies, the overwhelming majority of them do not have this separation. And I like to ask, not to argue, but to ask, is it possible because the molding image of the last Prophet, Muhammad, is one who fused in his very personality both? He was a prophet but a political leader. He was a theologian but at the same time he was a general or, he was, he led his armies to the war so, he actually, his very personality and personal behavior and therefore personal model to follow or to clone he actually fused mosque and state.

Gabriel Reynolds: I think it’s less about Muhammad and his personality and more about the standard and classical view of Muslims in regard to what God was doing from the very beginning with the world. So I know that’s very vague and ambiguous, but you know the Muslim view is that God imposes law upon humanity. So, God creates a human and he’s not, God is not simply like, “okay, hey, do whatever you want, have fun. I’ll see you on the day of resurrection.” Instead, God imposes a law, Sharia, on humanity. And he doesn’t really explain why. And humans aren’t really supposed to ask why. He simply does it. He’s Lord; you’re servant. And that law, according to the Islamic understanding of it, deals with every aspect of life. There’s no aspect isolated from Sharia. 

Avraham Burg: It’s a kind of a divine micromanagement. 

Gabriel Reynolds: I guess so, although, you know, interestingly enough, not all the rules are there, or not all of the rulings are there in Quran Hadith. So actually, it’s the Muslim jurisprudence who have to do the micromanaging; to sort out what you do when you yawn, or you sneeze, or you have to take three sips of water at a time, not four or whatever, right? But politics is also part of that. So, you know, if you just start with marriage and divorce. You know, God gives instructions on marriage and divorce. And so, a state can’t come around and be like, “no, no, we know better than God, we’re going to come up with our own ideas of marriage and divorce.” 

Avraham Burg: I don’t want to go too personal, but if one day we should have a conversation about the Jewish God’s obsession about micromanagement, I have something to say about it, okay? But let’s leave it on that sense. I think that…

Gabriel Reynolds: It’s actually very interesting. I’d be happy to learn from you about that, because…

Avraham Burg: It’s closer to the Muslim modus vivendi and modus operandi, but leave it aside, okay? 

Gabriel Reynolds: Okay.

Avraham Burg: We already, I mean, we move fast backwards and forwards from past to present, from present to past. So, let’s go to nowadays. I would say that since the Holocaust, and you mentioned the Holocaust, the Christian, the Catholic, for sure, I don’t want to go into the Protestant one because it’s a different dynamic altogether, especially the American one with its value system, and its biblical understanding, et cetera. But since the Nostra Aetate of ’65, we mentioned, which among other things, reacted to the atrocities of the first half of the 20th century, and that was invested in the Jewish-Christian dialogue, and that, I mean, at every possible dimension, every possible layer of it. Is something invested today in the either Muslim world or the Christian Catholic world into the Christian Muslim dialogue? 

Gabriel Reynolds: The dialogue with Islam, I think the first thing to say is, in terms of theology, fundamentally different than the dialogue with Judaism. This is just theology. There’s the human dimension, in which case it’s the same, you know, from a Catholic point of view, all humans are children of God. I don’t have more dignity as a Catholic than an atheist or a Muslim or whatever, right? So human dimension is one thing. But theologically, the dialogue is really distinct for the reasons you said, which is a Christian cannot say that Jews were not the people of God, whether they are the people of God or the chosen people. You know, there might be some theological fights about that, they cannot say that the Jewish scripture is invalid because it’s their scripture. And in fact, the whole sort of foundation of Christian claims about Jesus is what God has done with Israel. So, all of those dimensions, you know, this is really kind of deep, deep stuff theologically. None of that is there with Islam. And, you know, in some ways, it’s just terrible that we have this phrase Abrahamic religions. On the human level, it’s probably good, but on the theological level, I mean, it just makes a mess of everything. The relationship is just fundamentally different in terms of theology with Islam. And I imagine Judaism with Islam versus Judaism with Christianity probably is a different sort of thing. 

Avraham Burg: And among other things that if, let’s say, Deus ex machina, Abraham wakes up nowadays and walks into the contemporary Jewish realities. Say, “is that mine?” Okay, he will be fully rejected by the religious rabbinical establishment or the political establishment, but that’s a different story, okay. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Right. And so, when it comes, if I can just add a word or two about the contemporary Catholic engagement with Islam. Theologically, it’s really focused on the human level. So, if you look at the recent document by the late Pope Francis on human fraternity signed with the Grand Imam of el-Azhar in Abu Dhabi, that document, it really focuses on human dimension. There’s very little sort of distinct sort of Christian or even Catholic, Muslim theological agreement on there. It’s mostly about, you know, we’re all humans, let’s work together for good, that sort of thing. Actually, the Catholic Church remains notably silent on any sort of assessment of Islam, in terms of theology, in terms of Quran, in terms of Muhammad, there’s almost nothing there. 

Avraham Burg: Beside the fact that I hope there will be, let’s go to what you said now, the human dimension only, or what you called earlier, your historic approach rather than theological approach, which are both going to the same place. Let’s avoid the religious debate. Let’s look at it with a curious eye and discover. I will say that there is today a challenge that was not there even in ‘65 or 100 years ago, or in the year 1965 of the Nostra Aetate, and this is the fact that in the midst of the Christian West, there is a very significant Muslim presence that was not there in the West, maybe since the end of the 15th century. So, for the first time, you cannot say, “Ah, the Muslims, those are the other side of our Europe, or our not in Ostrom, I’m the Mediterranean, our sea.” No, no, no, no, no. They are inside. So, the need for a conversation based on something, not just obeying laws that don’t cross the street on red light but accepting the fact that there is here an element that sees the state differently, worship differently. And what do we do with that requires some theological inputs or at least, fresh thinking, no? 

Gabriel Reynolds: I mean, in some ways, in terms of the Muslim populations, the United States, I don’t know Western Europe as well, but the Muslim American community, in some ways, it really is the wild west. That works well because we’re in the West. Because you have all sorts of currents, if you just think about Sunni Islam, you’ve got everything. So, you know, this really dynamic movement of progressive Islam, which almost doesn’t exist in many, maybe most Muslim majority countries, pro-LGBTQ, ecological activism, concern about, you know, various social justice issues, but also rethinking the way you engage with Sharia. Like, should life really be about haram and halal and everything in between? 

Avraham Burg: Haram is forbidden and halal is kosher, is allowed. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Yes, exactly. Yeah, so, you know, the progressives would say, Islam is not Sharia. You don’t have to worry every single day about, you know, can I use this or that toothbrush? Or do I have to shave my armpit hair? Our Islam is spirituality. It’s closeness to God. It’s loving other people. So that’s there. And then you have, you know, very, very conservative Salafism, you know, a really dynamic Salafi movement. And within Salafi Muslim Americans, you have different currents, some of which are more sympathetic to extremists. Say, you know, in the Middle East, others are like, no, Salafi as a way of being Muslim has nothing to do with…

Avraham Burg: And then you have New York.

Gabriel Reynolds: Well, that’s a good example, right? The recent, not yet election, I guess, but the nomination as a democratic nominee of a Muslim American who very much represents the progressive Islam, you know, in terms of social values. So, this is something new. In some ways, it’s more interesting from the perspective of how Muslims themselves are navigating this new context. Here’s a simple example. So you have many Muslims, you know, it’s not like a massive tsunami, but you have many Muslims who are leaving Islam in the United States. Of course, many non-Muslims are also converting to Islam. So, you have in, but you also have out. And I just mentioned the out, because this doesn’t happen in Egypt, or Morocco, or Pakistan. You know, you don’t, like, publicly say, “I’m no longer a Muslim, I’m a Christian or whatever.” You may privately become an atheist, but that’s a different, you know, ball of wax. And by Islamic law, you shouldn’t be able to do this, leave Islam. And yet it’s happened in the US and Muslim communities are adapting to this in a new context. 

Avraham Burg: We open here a whole new library, not a chapter, a library about the Muslim nation. And what happened during the civil rights movement that so many oppressed African Americans said “Aha, this suppression that we suffer came from the Christian world. So, let’s move to the Muslim one.” I mean, it’s a bigger issue also about American identity by itself, but I would like to put here for our conversation a narrow slice of this whole thing. I will say that let’s say Christianity, the Christian world and Christianity met enlightenment and secularism 500 years ago. Give or take. And I will say that most of Western Christianity is secular today in its public, whatever you do in your private life, it’s fine, no problem. Judaism met the same reality, 150, 200 years ago, maybe half of the Jewish people were democratized and secularized. Half are not yet there. The Muslim world met it maybe 50, 60, 70 years ago. So, they are very young in this conversation between let’s call it, sorry for the superficiality of the term, Western values and traditional values. Now the clash is, it must be, huge for the individual and the communities. And if there will be no investment by the West in order to enable the development of Western Islam, so the clash will happen in our myths rather than the solution born in our myths. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Yeah, so much. A very rich, rich reflection on the developments within Islam in terms of not just politics but values, as you said. In terms of Muslims in the West, I think, in fact, the Western Islam already exists. You have new immigrants, of course, arriving, and then you have some Muslims, even American converts to Islam, who find the old style really appealing and become Salafi. The women might wear the burqa or... 

Avraham Burg: On the other side, the Sufi, which are the kind of the physical excitement and ecstasy, and I see it a lot in North America. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Yes, but in terms of sort of Western values and Islam, I think it’s already there. I mean, the interesting thing about the Muslim American population is that while you have some pockets, usually in big cities, plus Dearborn, Michigan.  

Avraham Burg: All during the last presidential campaign, we heard where the Muslims are living in North America. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Exactly. Yeah, people are going crazy with Biden and all that, or Harris later on. So yeah, I mean, and then, you know, Philadelphia, New York, LA, but generally, unlike the context in a lot of Western European countries, there are Muslims in every suburb in the United States and, you know, they’re your neighbors. And so there doesn’t tend to be this phenomenon of pockets of Muslims, you know, like certain British cities are like, a Muslim Muslim city. Same thing, the suburbs, les banlieues de Paris or Marseille and these others in the south of France. So, in the US, you tend to have this, you know, Muslims are part of the fabric of almost every town in the United States. American Islam already exists. Overwhelmingly, Muslim children go to public schools or Catholic schools, studying the same things, watching the same stuff on Netflix or TikTok or whatever. So, I think it’s really there. In some ways, the big issue are in the Muslim, in terms of politics in Islam, the sort of struggle between a modern way of being Muslim and a traditional way is happening in Muslim majority countries. Not only, you know, people like, “Oh, Iran, Saudi Arabia,” yes, there, but also, you know, in countries like Egypt, even Jordan. There’s an interesting case, obviously. The monarchy a vary, say, western leaning monarchy, but, you know, in terms of the fabric of the society, deeply Islamic religious. But the West, I think, I mean, it’s already there, in my opinion, at least in the United States. I don’t know Europe as well, but in the United States. 

Avraham Burg: I hear through your music the composition of the sound, not just the content of the words, that you like it. You have a lot of appreciation for it. I mean, with all the criticism and all the observation and reservation, you like it. How come you are so much fond of it and the West in general is so frightful?

Gabriel Reynolds: The United States, I think, is a unique case in terms of Muslim Americans. I think it’s unique. I know I lived one year in France, but generally I don’t know Western Europe as well. but my sense, at least from the case in France, is that there are issues there. It’s, the public debate is much more heated. Also, within the Muslim community, there’s a certain sometimes disposition towards France and the values that the so-called secularism of France, which…

Avraham Burg: The Laïcité  

Gabriel Reynolds: The Laïcité. And the suspicion that there’s something deeply anti-Islam, in that it’s not actually Laïcité, there’s actually a project against Islam from Muslims in France. I heard a lot of this sort of conspiratorial talk. So, I think there’s something much more heated and complicated, probably in Western Europe. I don’t think it’s only France, the time I spent in Belgium, kind of similar things going on. But the United States, I think, is a different case. 

Avraham Burg: The vice president just said recently that Europe is doomed because of that. And I’ll ask, how comes that in America, in United States, you had at least two incidents, September 11th, and then recently, the policy of not accepting immigrants or asylum seekers from a certain Muslim state, how come they did not ignite the same kind of heated debate like in Central Europe.

Gabriel Reynolds: That’s beyond my pay grade. I agree with your assessment that it did not ignite the same sort of clash within populations among Americans. It didn’t. And it’s not that everything’s perfect and that if I could remember the poem on the Statue of Liberty, that that’s all that played out as it should be. The melting pot. I’m not saying that. But I mean, there’s definitely a different vibe than you find in Western Europe. 

Avraham Burg: One before last question or comment. If I have to tell you “Gabriel, do me a favor. I have time to read one chapter of the Quran only. Just one chapter, okay?” Which one you give me? Which chapter and say “Hey, that’s the one.” 

Gabriel Reynolds: That’s a great question. Okay, so for my personal interest, which may not be yours Avrum or the viewers here, chapter 28, which is known as the cave is incredibly interesting. So, I mean, this is just a good example of, you know, when I spoke about the Quran, my interest in the internal logic, the goals of the authors and its engagement with the external world, this is a really great case. It starts with a story of young men who fall asleep in a cave, which in Arabic is “qahif.” So, they fall asleep in a cave and they’re woken up hundreds of years later, so meaning they’ve actually died and God has resuscitated them. And it’s a story which the Quran sort of leverages to make a teaching about the day of resurrection for all of us; that people have been dead and in their grave for hundreds of years. To God it’s no big deal. He will resuscitate them and there will be a day of judgment and there’s all sorts of arguments connected. But the story itself is, I’ll just stop here because there’s two other stories. I don’t know if you want to go there in this chapter, but the story itself is…

Avraham Burg: I love the piece to go to sleep with a dog. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Yes, and there’s a dog. 

Avraham Burg: You know, the Arab society, dogs are not very, in the culture, dog is not very welcome. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Usually, you don’t have a dog as a pet. 

Avraham Burg: And they go into the cave and sleep for a long while with the dog. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Okay, so I don’t know how much time we have, but first of all, there was some hand ringing among Muslim commentators of the Quran around the dog. Some of the commentators say, “Well, the dog was just outside the cave, sort of protecting it,” because there is a Hadith which sort of discourages Muslims from having dogs inside a house. So, there’s that. But okay, the story itself is a Christian story; specifically Christian. The story comes from a context around the years, the third, fourth century AD or CE, in which there’s controversy specifically about the resurrection of the body inside of Christian theological circles, because there were certain Christians associated with a guy named Origen who said, “No, no. The body doesn’t, isn’t raised at all. The afterlife is just spiritual.” And so, then someone started telling the story about these young men, they’re known in Christian tradition as the sleepers of Ephesus, who fell asleep during the reign of the Emperor Decius. They woke up during the reign of the Emperor Theodosius. 

Avraham Burg: And the whole city are believers. 

Gabriel Reynolds: They’re Christian believers persecuted by the bad evil pagans. Christ wakes them up once, you know, there’s a good Christian emperor, Theodosius. I don’t know if he was actually good, but anyway, they walked around, they showed their old coins they had and proved to everyone, “oh no, the bodies really would be raised.” So, it’s a story that has its origin and really its coherence within Christian theological debates, but the Quran happens to agree with the so called Orthodox Christian teaching of the resurrection of the flesh, the body, and so it leverages this story for its own purposes. So, there’s something. 

Avraham Burg: Well, interesting. I didn’t think about this one, but it’s fine. I’ll leave it as is. I’ll tell you, when I thought about our conversation, I didn’t know what will be the spirit of it. Okay. Will it be, you know, angry or too severe academic one? Or will it be, I mean, light between two curious people trying to excavate or to discover. And I find it none of the above. And since I enjoyed it so much, I want to tell you something very, very personal. I want to wish you something. I want to wish you to continue to be happy. But it’s not a great wisdom with you because you’re already Sa’id, Okay. When you go to the Arabic term, you are Gabriel Sa’id Reynolds. I take it Sa’id is going back to the Lebanese?

Gabriel Reynolds: Yeah, my grandfather, his first name was happy Sa’id. 

Avraham Burg: So Sa’id is happy, fortunate, blessed one, and I just wish you to continue to be so Sa’idi.

Gabriel Reynolds: Thank you so much, Toda, Shukran, for the chance to speak. 

Avraham Burg: Allah makum. Shukran, Allah makum. 

Gabriel Reynolds: Thank you very much, Gabriel.