Universal Love and Interreligious Dialogue: A Reflection on “A Common Word”

Abstract

While there have been many projects over the past decade aimed to bring Muslims and Christians together, the most prominent seems to be the 2007 publication of A Common Word Between You and Us. Written by a large group of Muslim scholars and leaders, the objective of A Common Word is to initiate dialogue with Christians. The essay is a Christian response that is intended to advance the dialogue. It is a refection on ‘universal love’, that is to say, the sense that there may be common human experiences of being loved and loving. The essay briefly considers the traditional ‘objects’ of love, God and the neighbor in both traditions. It then follows the reflections on what some contemporary Catholic theologians refer to as the characteristics of ‘radical’ love, namely, emotion, response, affirmation, unity, and fidelity in dialogue with some sources from the Muslim tradition.