LONDON — On a day in which Boko Haram bomb attacks left more than 150 people dead in Nigeria, Sister Janet Fearns from Missio, has sent us this report on how Franciscans and Muslims are working for peace: With an 800-year-old example to show them the way! In 1219, St Francis of Assisi, alone and unarmed, astounded the warring armies of Damietta’s besieged Crusaders and the Saracens when he walked into the Saracen camp and asked to speak to the Sultan, Melek al-Kamil. Francis had a problem which he wanted to discuss: pilgrims wanted to visit the Holy Places and were prevented by the constant battles between the Christians and Muslims in Egypt. The pilgrims needed unhindered access to the sacred sites, regardless of whatever was happening around them. The Sultan agreed and so, for 800 years, that tiny joint venture in peace-making has been a treasured memory for both Franciscans and Muslims. The Damietta Peace Initiative (DPI) came into being in 2008 and is an amazing Franciscan-Muslim cooperation which arose as both Franciscans and Muslims reflected upon this unlikely meeting. There are an estimated 12,000 Franciscans in Africa, but in 2008, in true Franciscan fashion, they started small. If Christians and Muslims were to cooperate in little ways, bit by bit, they could help to bring about peace and dialogue. Each small act of love and understanding could help to build something big and beautiful. The Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood (FMDMs) have been involved in the DPI from the start. They already enjoyed many years of practical experience of Christian-Muslim dialogue as a result of their work in Palestinian refugee camps in Amman, Jordan, where several Sisters became fluent Arabic speakers, able to see and understand Islam ‘on the inside’. They also had 60 years of unbroken presence in the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria, again caring for the poor regardless ... 
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NEW YORK — As I listen to sound bites of news, a swarm of words sting me: Iran, Israel, nuclear, Palestine-Israel at a standstill, Muslims kill Jews, and Jews kill Muslims. As a Muslim woman who teaches classes about the Holocaust at a Catholic college, I am constantly frustrated by the media coverage of the Middle East which overwhelmingly serves to highlight and entrench national and religious tensions, prejudice and conflict. A recently-aired documentary by 
ZICHRON YAAKOV, ISRAEL — The image of Israel’s Haredim has taken a public battering over the past few months, particularly over the issue of discriminatory conduct toward women, which even a few Haredi groups have disavowed. But in an unusual act of outreach, some of these ultra-Orthodox Jews have recently found an original way of engaging with people outside their own closed religious world:
BRIGHTON, U.K. — I am on the train, travelling south from Tel Aviv to Be’er Sheva. Three Bedouin women dressed in hijab (headscarves) enter the train ahead of me and my daughter, each with a toddler. They see there are no seats together, so they opt to sit on the floor, near the doors. I find seats for myself and my daughter. Across the aisle from us sits a man with a kipah, a cap worn by Orthodox Jewish men. A Bedouin woman in hijab and her toddler sit facing him. The toddler is cranky; she is tired of sitting on mother's lap. She wants to explore. Her mother holds her firmly as she squirms and whines, trying to pacify her. Because she is using simple Arabic language for
When I moved to Egypt to study Arabic in 2004, I was amazed how often Muslims there said alhamdulillah (i.e., praise God). When I asked friends “How are you?”, they replied alhamdulillah (praise God). When I congratulated Mahmoud’s children for their high marks in school, they replied alhamdulillah. Even when Haala cut her hand deeply with a sharp kitchen knife, she repeated steadily alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, as we worked to stop the bleeding. To my amazement, she was genuinely thankful, mindful her
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