Keywords: Basmala, supplication, healing, destiny, shared.
1. Introduction:
This research aims to understand the relationship between Christians and Muslims by identifying the three pillars that we can extract from the Epistle of Qusta ibn Luqa, and their continuation popularly and intellectually to this day. The model of the Epistle of Qusta ibn Luqa shows us, in the clearest manner, the natural and pure relationship between Christians and Muslims. The relationship was not one of rival against rival, nor of two enemies and adversaries, but a relationship of true partnership. The Christians adopted Arabic — historically and culturally — with a complete adoption, and Arab history became a shared history, and the future and the destiny became a shared destiny. Patriarch Ignatius Hazim says: ” The destiny of Christians and Muslims has become one.” This shared relationship was nothing but a true relationship, built on the understanding of the other with a true understanding, and a relational bond that makes the two parties partners on the level of life and existence.
2. The Merciful Basmala:
The introduction of the epistle begins with the merciful Basmala: ” In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.” This Basmala was recited by Christians and Muslims, and was the opening of most Arabic books, such as the books of Hunayn ibn Ishaq and Ibn Al-‘Ibri, whose book Tarikh Mukhtasar Al-Duwal[1] begins with the Basmala “In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful,” and the opening of some translations of the Bible — the beginning of one of the translations of the Book of Genesis: “In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, and in Him we seek help.” This sharing of the Basmala was not strange or rejected among the Christian writers, neither in the scientific books such as the epistle we are dealing with, nor in the theological books and the translations of the Bible. The Arab Christians used many Arabic-Islamic terms in writing theology, such as (God, Mighty and Majestic; God, the Most High; and blessed be the Most Merciful; the Divine Essence; etc.).
The shared Basmala forms for us a beacon for understanding the outlook of the believers of both religions, for both look at the essence of God and believe in Him with the same attributes: He is the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. We cannot understand that this attempt is an appeasement of the Muslims or a drawing near to them; rather, it is exactly what the early Arab Christians understood: that Arabic and the culture it carries are a shared foundation for Christians and Muslims, and the believers of both religions possess those spiritual commonalities. Therefore it was easy for the Arab Christians to move from their narrow backgrounds and identities to the vastness of Arabic and to adopt it. Thus Metropolitan George Khodr (the contemporary) — a metropolitan in the Antiochian Orthodox Church — uses the phrase “prayer is better than sleep” in the dawn prayer[2], and Patriarch Ignatius Hazim, Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, uses in one of his sermons about the royal gate words he called the divine declaration from the Noble Qur’an:
“When the angels said: O Mary, God gives you glad tidings of a word from Him, whose name is ‘Isa the son of Mary, held in honor in this world and the Hereafter, and of those brought near” — “And We gave ‘Isa the son of Mary clear proofs and supported him with the Holy Spirit.” God Almighty has spoken the truth, and God Almighty has spoken the truth — this is from me, because the believer says it because this speech is the speech of God[3].
And we often hear, in the popular Christian context, when asking mercy upon a dead person, the phrase ” may God make him dwell in His spacious gardens” or the phrase “and to you the great reward and recompense.” This continuous communication of using Arabic-Islamic expressions in a Christian context — despite all that the relations between Christians and Muslims have undergone of disturbances and troubles — has not prevented the survival of the cultural commonalities between us. This completely confirms the single roots of Arab Christian and Islamic thought, and the purity of the daily relationship.
3. Prayer or supplication for a Muslim
“I ask God to magnify His blessing upon you, to grant you safety and a praiseworthy outcome, to reward you abundantly for it, and to make your companionship in it good”[4]. When we read some of the strict canons of the Church that say prayer with the heretics is forbidden, and we read the supplication from the mouth of a Christian for a Muslim, it throws us into great perplexity: is this writer trying to appease the Muslim, whatever his rank, or is it truly a Christian approach? Whatever the interpretation, I stand before a mature Christian thought that confronts the life of the believers of another religion. This supplication constitutes an incarnational act of God’s salvific economy, for the believer, in his faith, is an agent of the other’s salvation, and extends salvation to every “man coming into the world.” (John 1:9), and does not confine it to himself. For prayer, in our Orthodox faith, is not merely a verbal supplication, but communication with God, and the sharing of all those for whom we pray in this divine-human communication. And this is what we embody practically in the Divine Liturgy when we offer the divine oblation for all the world and its salvation, excluding no one from the prayer, whether believer or non-believer, and we embody it in the clearest manner when we raise the supplication in the Liturgy for the ruler of the country, whether Muslim, Christian, or atheist, saying “for the rulers of this land and their assistance in every good work, let us pray to the Lord”[5]. Thus the Christian supplication shows the depth of the affection binding two people of two different religions. On the other hand, we cannot read what Qusta ibn Luqa wrote through our reality and the problems it carries that accumulated over time between Christians and Muslims. What must be done is to read the relationship at its beginning, in its pristine purity, before we entered it and were affected by the problems and sectarian tensions that began to accumulate from the wars of the Franks, which poisoned the relationship between Christians and Muslims.
4. The medical care for a Muslim
This pillar is the entire book, and it is a book that constitutes preventive advice to ward off illness for a Muslim person going on the Hajj, and not in an ordinary daily context. The vizier Muhsin ibn Mukhallad had asked him to accompany him on the Hajj to oversee his health, but circumstances prevented Qusta ibn Luqa from accompanying the vizier on the Hajj. This point constitutes a strong sign that is linked to and establishes the understanding, not on the religious-theological level, but on the daily life level of that time.
“The book constitutes a model of shared coexistence between the followers of Christianity and Islam, a unique model in Christian–Islamic relations that distinguished the Abbasid era, and a clear contribution of the Arab Christians to Arab-Islamic civilization”[6].
This daily relationship that appears in Qusta’s epistle, despite all that happened between us as Christians and Muslims, has also preserved much cooperation to this day. Life on the daily level is shared. For example, the loaf of bread that the Christians eat is not made only by Christian hands, but dozens of hands (Christians and Muslims) made it, from the cultivation of the wheat to its manufacture and sale. Although this example is a simple example, it expresses, in its simplicity, true cooperation, and so it is in all the joints of daily life. This has also been reflected in life in our contemporary time in Syria and Lebanon, for example. It is worth noting that the cooperation was not confined to the non-religious field, for it is worth noting that many of the church’s tools used in the liturgy, such as the censers, the candles, etc., were made by Muslim coppersmiths, without this raising our resentment as Christians. It is also striking that some Muslims have mastered the art of painting Byzantine icons, such as the girl Dhikra Al-‘Ali, who owns a studio in Khan Al-Zujaj in Damascus (Syria)[7], in addition to Mahmoud Zibawi, a Muslim who is also a researcher in the art of icons, who says:
“The icons pursue me in a strange way I do not understand… The truth is that my relationship with this art began as admiration and passion at first, then turned into a specialization”[8].
5. Conclusion:
The relationship between Christians and Muslims, in its purity, is a relationship characterized by a shared life and cooperation. What Qusta ibn Luqa wrote shows us how the relationship between the believers in his age was, and the trace it left in the Arab Christian and Islamic heart, which all that befell the Christian–Islamic relationship was unable to erase. And we will certainly realize that however much the relationship between the two parties is disturbed as a result of the Crusades and other things on the one hand, and all the fatwas of takfir of the extremist Islamic groups on the other, there remain pillars and fundamentals that form for us a point of reference, upon which we build our relationship and our future, and through which we transcend the differences that accumulated over the centuries. What Qusta ibn Luqa wrote is a reference for Christian conduct and a constitution for daily life.
References
- Al-Damour, Muhammad. Between Love and Livelihood… The Memoirs of a Syrian Girl Who Embraces the Art of the Byzantine Icon, Spuntik magazine 3/2/2020, accessed 26/5/2025, available at: WWW.SAEABIC.AE
- Hazim, Ignatius. Dialogues (1989–2000). Damascus, Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, 2001.
- Hujairi, Muhammad. Mahmoud Zibawi, an Iconographer Who Does Not Pray but for the Spark of Faith, Al-Modon newspaper, 17/8/2014, accessed 20/5/2025, available at: WWW.ALMODON.COM.
- Khodr, George. The Dawn Prayer, Orthodox Youth Movement website, article date: 25/10/2024, reading date: 20/5/2025, WWW.MJOA.ORG
- Qusta ibn Luqa, Manuscript: Epistle on the Management of the Hajj Journey, Qatar Digital Library, reading date: 24/5/2025, available at: WWW.QDL.QA
- Imad Touma, Qusta ibn Luqa… the Arab Christian Author of the First Health Guide for the Hajj to Mecca, Al-Arabiya magazine, 3/30/2019, accessed 26/5/2025, available at: WWW.ARABICMAGAZINE.NET
- Gregorius ibn Ahron Al-Malati, Abu Al-Faraj. Mukhtasar Al-Duwal, Beirut, Dar Al-Kutub Al-Ilmiyya.
[1] Abu Al-Faraj Gregorius ibn Ahron Al-Malati, Mukhtasar Al-Duwal (Beirut, Dar Al-Kutub Al-Ilmiyya, 1997), p. 7.
[2] George Khodr, The Dawn Prayer, Orthodox Youth Movement website, article date: 25/10/2024, reading date: 20/5/2025, WWW.MJOA.ORG
[3] Ignatius Hazim, Dialogues (1989–2000), (Damascus, Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, 2001), p. 101.
[4] Qusta ibn Luqa, Manuscript: Epistle on the Management of the Hajj Journey, reading date: 24/5/2025.
[5] From the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom.
[6] Imad Touma, Qusta ibn Luqa… the Arab Christian Author of the First Health Guide for the Hajj to Mecca, Al-Arabiya magazine, 3/30/2019, accessed 26/5/2025, available at: WWW.ARABICMAGAZINE.NET
[7] Muhammad Al-Damour, Between Love and Livelihood… The Memoirs of a Syrian Girl Who Embraces the Art of the Byzantine Icon, Spuntik magazine 3/2/2020, accessed 26/5/2025, available at: WWW.SAEABIC.AE
[8] Muhammad Hujairi, Mahmoud Zibawi, an Iconographer Who Does Not Pray but for the Spark of Faith, Al-Modon newspaper, 17/8/2014, accessed 20/5/2025, available at: WWW.ALMODON.COM.