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The Tent of Abraham: Stories of Hope and Peace for Jews, Christians, and Muslims [Hardcover]

Joan Chittister , Saadi Shakur Chishti , Arthur Waskow , Karen Armstrong
4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

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Book Description

May 31, 2006
In recent years there has been an explosion of curiosity and debate about Islam and about the role of religion, both in the world and in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The numerous books published on these questions speak to issues of politics, history, or global security. None speaks to the heart and the spirit, and yet millions of people experience these issues not as political, economic, or intellectual questions but as questions of deep spiritual, emotional, and religious significance.

The Tent of Abraham provides readers with stories that can bring all the faiths together. Written by Saadi Shakur Chishti, a Scottish American Sufi, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, an American Jew, and Joan Chittister, a Benedictine sister, the book explores in accessible language the mythic quality and the teachings of reconciliation that are embedded in the Torah, the Qur'an, and the Bible. It also weaves together the wisdoms of the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian traditions into a deeper, more unified whole.

The Tent of Abraham is the first book to tell the whole story of Abraham as found in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim sources and to reenergize it as a basis for peace.

"At a time when we have seen too much certainty [of dogmatic faith], The Tent of Abraham reminds us that the kind of confusion, fear, and dismay that so many of us are experiencing can be the start of a new religious quest . . . The Tent of Abraham brings three religious traditions together so that we may all become more familiar with the faiths lived by the strangers around us."--Karen Armstrong, from the Foreword

Rabbi Arthur Waskow is the director of The Shalom Center in Philadelphia and author of numerous books, including Seasons of Our Joy (Beacon/ 3611-0/ $18.00 pb) and Down-to-Earth Judaism. Joan Chittister, OSB, is a best-selling writer and lecturer. She lives in Erie, Pennsylvania. Saadi Shakur Chishti (Neil Douglas-Klotz) is an internationally known Sufi scholar and writer. His most recent book is The Sufi Book of Life.
<hr>
Rabbi Arthur Waskow, one of the authors of The Tent of Abraham: Stories of Hope and Peace for Jews, Christians, and Muslims is the "weaver" of a new haggadah or "telling" for Passover. It is called "The Passover of Peace: A Seder for the Children of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah."

This Seder is built on the Biblical and Muslim stories of Abraham, Hagar and Sarah, Ishmael and Isaac, rather than on the story of the Exodus from Egypt. It has been and can be used as a context for thought and action toward peace in the Middle East, by Jewish families, congregations, and communities; by groups of Jews and Palestinians or Jews and Muslims: or by groups of all three Abrahamic faiths.


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The three coauthors, representing the three major Western faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), explain each religion's basis for a monotheistic multifaith movement by delving into ancient stories. Waskow, a rabbi, offers intellectual perspective on the Abrahamic story, explaining symbolic themes of Judaism. The Torah, for instance, is said to have been written with "black fire on white fire": The white fire is the blank spaces, where Jews of each generation are meant to read and reread the language contained in the black fire. Catholic sister and popular writer Chittister describes the Middle East conflict with compelling anecdotes from her own firsthand experience in founding an Israeli-Palestinian women's group. Finally, Sufi writer Chishti discusses the spiritual content and opinions related to Islam. The authors explore provocative questions, such as which son Abraham meant to sacrifice (Isaac, ancestor of the Jews, or Ishmael, ancestor of the Muslims) and the nature of the relationship between Sarah and Hagar: were they devoted friends, rivals or simply property of Abraham? Evoking the "open tent" policy of Abraham, who welcomed all visitors to his home despite social mores, the coauthors air out all options. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

The Palestinian/Israeli conflict has elicited many books exhorting political and religious peace in the Middle East, but none has appealed to individual minds and hearts quite like this one. —LibraryJournal, starred review

"The stories of our common ancestors told in this book with such creative imagination inspire all of us to build community across the walls that normally divide us." —Bob Edgar, general secretary, National Council of Churches

"This book will open your eyes to the possibilities for collaborative work between our traditions and is a must-read for those doing interfaith peacework." —Tikkun


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 240 pages
  • Publisher: Beacon Press (May 31, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0807077283
  • ISBN-13: 978-0807077283
  • Product Dimensions: 1.1 x 5.7 x 8.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,334,820 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Doyal November 4, 2006
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
The Tent of Abraham presents a vision of hope: what Jews, Christians and Muslims can do for a mutual understanding of the essence that binds these three great religions in Abraham. This book is especially clutching in showing the reader how women, mothers caught up in the madness of war, can see more clearly than politicians, that our humanity and our compassion should inform us that war can never be a satisfactory solution to any human need. People of all faiths should read this book.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Praises for this contribution to peace March 24, 2007
Format:Hardcover
This is a most important book, and I highly recommend it. The combination of a Christian Sister, a Rabbi and a Sufi Murshid discussing their views of Abraham and Sarah's lives/tent from an in-depth perspective offers a model for peace and discussion that can be used in Churches, Mosques and Synagogues around the world.

The authors present a discussion and model for deeper discourse that offers much hope in our seriously troubled world. The following Sura quoted from the Qur'an on page 133 of The Tent of Abraham highlights its message:

"So turn your face and purpose towards the priordial religion of the upright, the hanif, the nature innately formed by the One Reality in which the One created humanity. Let there be no change in this work created by the One. This religion is self-subsisting, the standard, always resurrecting itself. But most among humanity do not understand. Turn to and remain conscious only of the One, remaining constantly in prayer. Don't deify anything else in yor life, not concepts or beliefs. Don't divide yourselves into sects that contratulate themselves on their own ideas (translation of Sura 30:30-32).

We are all part of one human family who simply need to realize our divine Unity. Thank you Sr. Joan Chittister, Rabbi Waskow and Murshid Saadi for such a heartful book.

Sharon G. Mijares, Ph.D.
Primary author of The Root of All Evil: An Exposition of Prejudice, Fundamentalism and Gender Imbalance
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Please notice the reading regarding Abraham receiving the three travellers is this Sunday's First Reading in the Roman Catholic liturgy, followed by the Gospel Reading regarding the complementary hospitality of Mary and Martha.

And if you find that representation as bar joke unappealing, let us read it like Dante: A nun, a rabbi and a Muslim awoke in the midstream of their lives to discover themselves in a dark woods of war and danger, of fear and cruelty, and fled back to the welcoming refuge of Abraham's tent.

Or Biblically: Abram looked out from his tent and saw three strangers approaching: A Rabbi, a Muslim and a nun. Abram ran out to prostrate himself at their feet and beg them to come into his tent to rest and to eat and to pray together. They told him to call himself Abraham and his wife Sarah. And the rest is our history.

An interesting aspect of this recent book is that it reads best from the back to the front. Thus alone do we discover the unmentioned and secret author, the Rabbi Phyllis Berman, sharing her secret story, treasured for ages in secret among Hebrew women, of the profound love, alliance, solidarity and companionship of Hagar and Sarai, and thus of all the peoples engendered by Abraham: The Judeo-christian and Islam, an inheritance more numerous than the grains of sand by the sea and the stars at night.

The leaves high at the top of a mighty oak tree might know only their separation, might feel only their beating one another in the powerful winds that pass. Only by looking way back may they perceive that they in fact spring from the one thick and solid trunk and are in fact children of the one Father.

Other important books to read in this regard were written by the Islamic scholar and Roman Catholic Deacon, George Dardess, in particular his great Do We Worship the Same God?: Comparing the Bible And the Qur'an as well as his Meeting Islam: A Guide For Christians (A Many Mansions Book).

Truly this present volume is a monument necessary for our needlessly divided times which profit no one but the war mongers and munitions makers. By this great cornerstone may we rebuild the great kingdom of peace and compassion which our One God commanded, to which our One God guides us, the thirst for which our One God fills our Spirit.

This book serves well for Lectio Divina, including the remarkable Forward by Karen Armstrong, who reminds us that Abraham, in receiving the Three Strangers into his Tent, receives God. "The act of practical compassion led directly to a divine encounter." She goes on: " . . .it expresses a religious truth found in all the major traditions: it is compassion, not righteousness and doctrinal certainty, that leads us into the presence of what monotheists call God, . . ."

Recall here that the Latin roots of our word religion indicate a binding back together again, to ourselves, to one another, to God. Religion therefore ties us all together in one family, one humanity, united by God. Religion explicitly does not permit us to kill one another, not even in the name of God, but to love one another.

Truly this book is far too profound and important and prophetic for our times for me to attempt a superficial summary here. This is a book to live with, and to awaken by to the welcoming fact that we all dwell within the generous tent of Abraham. This book comes recommended by several authoritative sources, including Tikkum, which writes, "This book will open your eyes to the possibilities of collaborative work between our traditions, and is a must read for those doing interfaith peacework."

Our duty as believers is to do interpersonal peacework. Blessed are the Peacemakers. Do for others what you want them to do for you. Read this book and live it, please, for the sake of our children and their children.

Late last year Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI, paused in silent prayer inside Turkey's Blue Mosque, breathing our unity of Faith. May we follow faithfully his holy example.

And what a joy and a relief to read in this context the great Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister, still strong and prophetic. I also strongly recommend her The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages (Crossroad Spiritual Legacy Series). It was she who led me to this Tent of Abraham, now available in paperback and important for us to study carefully and prayerfully today.
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