'The Epichorus': Creative Heretics Build Bridges Between Faiths

When we hear the word religion, we often associate it with violence or conflict. The reason for this is that religion is frequently used as a means to ostracize or demean fellow humans and to justify violence. Political and socioeconomic causes of conflicts are also sometimes masked by invoking religious differences. This turns religion into a handy tool to promote certain agendas and perpetuate conflicts without addressing the underlying political and socioeconomic problems.

To address this abuse of religion, spiritual leaders and visionaries try to organize interfaith events. The hope is that when people of different religious backgrounds meet each other, they will engage in a dialogue. This should in turn allow them to recognize the similarities between their faith traditions and move past perceived differences. Such a fruitful interfaith dialogue could circumvent the abuse of religion as a tool for promoting conflicts. However, the problem with such interfaith events is that they do not necessarily result in a true dialogue. During many of the interfaith events that I have attended, people of different faiths politely present ideas, traditions or doctrines from their respective religions and engage in a discussion. Instead of this encounter becoming a transforming dialogue, participants sometimes end up merely "performing" monologues for each other.

 One reason for the absence of true dialogue may be the inertia that prevents us from leaving our comfort zone. Few of us like to question the religious paradigms or doctrines that we grow up with. True dialogue is a spiritual and intellectual adventure. It is an exploration or journey that requires courage and openness, because it might challenge the religious dogmas that we like to cling to for the sake of convenience.

 I recently came across what is a beautiful form of true interfaith dialogue: the music of the band the Epichorus. Rabbinical student Zach Fredman and Muslim singer Alsarah co-founded the band and their musical love-child is the wonderful album One Bead. In this album, Zach, Alsarah and the other members of the band combine Jewish and Sudanese-Arab musical traditions to create music that transcends the boundaries of culture or religion. The lyrics of the songs are mostly drawn from the Jewish tradition, such as the "Song of Songs" (Song of Solomon) from the Old Testament, but the album also includes the traditional Sudanese love song "Nanaa Al Genina" (The Mint Garden).

 The common theme of the One Bead songs is love, the emotion that is at the core of our human existence and spirituality. Listening to the music, one feels a profound sense of harmony that exists between the various cultural and religious traditions that are part of the Epichorus. The lyrics for two of the songs are taken from the "Song of Songs" and this reminded me of something that the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote. He composed a cycle of poems called "West-östlicher Diwan" (or "West-Eastern Divan" in English). Goethe wrote these poems to represent a fusion between Eastern and Western traditions. He also wrote essays in which he elaborated on his poems and one of his comments specifically refers to the Old Testament "Song of Songs", of which he says, "...als dem Zartesten und Unnachahmlichsten, was uns von Ausdruck leidenschaftlicher, anmutiger Liebe zugekommen," which translates into English as: "...it is the most tender and unique expression of passionate and graceful love that has been given to us."

 I asked Zach how he chose the name the Epichorus for their band and he said that it was a reference to Epikoros (or Apikoros), which is a term used in the Jewish tradition to describe outsiders or heretics. The members of the Epichorus are indeed outsiders in the sense that they have the courage to look beyond the boundaries of their religious traditions and have sought out a creative dialogue with people outside of their faith traditions. They are also "heretics" in the original Greek sense of the word, describing people who "make choices." They chose to embark on a creative adventure and found that they could engage in an authentic dialogue by creating beautiful songs together.

 The music of the Epichorus is an excellent example of how creating culture together can promote true interfaith dialogue. Hopefully, we will hear more songs from the Epichorus, but I also hope that other artists, musicians or poets will be inspired by them and seek out their own creative paths to foster dialogue between faiths.

Note: An earlier version of this article was first published in the Huffington Post.

'Islamophobia' is Not a Phobia

The expression "Islamophobia" to describe anti-Muslim hostility in Europe and North America is becoming increasingly common. Even though the use of this expression is still not quite as trendy as a Lady Gaga song, one can already find numerous books, articles and websites that expound on the phenomenon of "Islamophobia". The views on "Islamophobia" are quite diverse, ranging from people on one end of the spectrum who do not believe that there is any significant anti-Muslim hostility in Europe and North America and no need for the term "Islamophobia", to those on the other end of the spectrum who frequently invoke the term "Islamophobia" to describe perceived hostility towards Muslims or Islam.

 During the last few months at least three books on the topic of "Islamophobia" have been published by academics and scholars: Islamophobia: The Ideological Campaign Against Muslims by Stephen Sheehi, Islamophobia by Chris Allen and Islamophobia: The Challenge of Pluralism in the 21st Century edited by John L. Esposito and Ibrahim Kalin. These books discuss a variety of topics related to the phenomenon of "Islamophobia", such as its various manifestations in politics and the mass media, its historical roots and development, the overlap of "Islamophobia" with racism and how "Islamophobia" relates to colonialism and imperialism. The actual definition of "Islamophobia" is not discussed in much detail. Most of these books use the term "Islamophobia" to describe various types of fear, prejudice, discrimination or hostility directed against Islam and Muslims, in part basing this vague definition of "Islamophobia" on the 1997 report of the Runnymede Trust in the U.K., which was one of the first documents to use the actual expression "Islamophobia". Chris Allen's book devotes one whole chapter to develop a new definition for "Islamophobia", but even the proposed new definition of "Islamophobia" remains understandably vague, since the numerous manifestations of prejudice cannot be easily captured in a short definition.

 While so many examples of what constitutes "Islamophobia" are presented, little effort is devoted to clarifying what does not constitute "Islamophobia". As the widespread usage of the expression "Islamophobia" is increasing, the danger of a vague and broad definition becomes apparent. Without a reasonable effort to delineate what is and what is not "Islamophobia", this term could be easily used to stigmatize or suppress legitimate criticisms of Muslim society, culture or theology. Not every rejected mosque building permit is necessarily a form of anti-Muslim discrimination, not every criticism of Muslim society, culture or religion is necessarily a manifestation of an "Islamophobic agenda". Academic scholars that use the expression "Islamophobia" are likely aware of the need to use this term in a narrow sense, so that it refers to true prejudice or hostility towards Muslims and is not abused to suppress legitimate critical views of Muslim society, culture or theology. However, for the expression "Islamophobia" (or any other expression that describes anti-Muslim prejudice and hostility) to be used in a meaningful manner by the wider public, there is a need to clearly formulate what does not constitute "Islamophobia".

 In addition to the vagueness of the "Islamophobia" expression, another troubling aspect of this neologism is the fact that it invokes the psychiatric concept of "phobia". Phobias fall under the category of anxiety disorders and describe pathological fears; while many know the term from the infamous expression "arachnophobia" (pathological fear of spiders), many different types of phobias have been observed in patients. The standard manual of the American Psychiatric Association is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV-TR) and refers to "Specific Phobia" as a,

"Marked and persistent fear that is excessive or unreasonable, cued by the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation (e.g., flying, heights, animals, receiving an injection, seeing blood)."

There are additional criteria that characterize a phobia, but I find the following one extremely interesting: "The person recognizes that the fear is excessive or unreasonable for discussing the term."

This is quite important since not every fear is automatically a "phobia"; the psychiatric term "phobia" is reserved for cases when the fear is excessive or unreasonable. If the patient does not recognize the fear as excessive or unreasonable, it becomes very difficult to actually prove that the fear is indeed excessive and unreasonable and thus the term "phobia" is not applicable. When neologisms with the word "phobia" are formed, this requirement should be considered. I myself use the term "porkophobia" to describe my own ridiculous and unreasonable dislike of pig products that by far exceeds any religious prescriptions. My understanding is that most people who are accused of having "Islamophobia" do not really think that their fears are excessive and unreasonable. Therefore, anti-Muslim fears, hostility or prejudice do not really constitute a "phobia" in the psychiatric sense and thus the use of the neologism "Islamophobia" may need to be re-evaluated.

 Lastly, I have encountered multiple Muslims who have likened present-day "Islamophobia" in Europe and North America to Anti-Semitism. My obvious response is that this is an absurd comparison since European Anti-Semitism resulted in the murder of millions of Jews in concentration camps and death camps during the Holocaust while no such camps were ever built to murder Muslims. The counter-response I have then gotten is that present-day "Islamophobia" may be similar to the pre-Holocaust Anti-Semitism in Europe. However, even this comparison contains a number of key flaws. A thoughtful analysis of this comparison can be found in Matti Bunzl's book "Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: Hatreds Old and New in Europe", which points out that there are some parallels between "Islamophobia" and Anti-Semitism in Europe, such as the fact that the far-right political parties have traditionally used Anti-Semitism as a means of creating a unified base of voters, but that these far-right parties are now replacing Anti-Semitism with anti-Muslim hostility to achieve that same goal. However, Bunzl goes on to show how different the roots and development of Anti-Semitism and "Islamophobia" are. Importantly, he suggests that Anti-Semitism developed as a form of racial hatred of Jews in the 19th century, but that it had been preceded by centuries of Jewish persecution by Christians on religious grounds. On the other hand, Bunzl proposes that present-day "Islamophobia" is neither a true theological hostility nor a racial hatred like Anti-Semitism, but instead represents a perceived clash of civilizations.

 In conclusion, the increasingly common usage of the expression "Islamophobia" requires a thoughtful and clear definition of what does and does not constitute anti-Muslim prejudice and hostility, a re-evaluation of whether "Islamophobia" is truly the most appropriate term to describe such perceived anti-Muslim prejudice and hostility and an avoidance of inappropriate blanket comparisons between anti-Muslim hostility and Anti-Semitism.

Note: An earlier version of this article was first published in the Huffington Post