Ramadan Is A Good Time For Jewish And Muslim Believers To Read – OpEd
"The Islamic Moses: How the Prophet Inspired Jews and Muslims to Flourish Together and Change the World," by Mustafa Akyol
During the month of Ramadan it would be mind opening for Jewish and Muslim believers to read “The Islamic Moses: How the Prophet Inspired Jews and Muslims to Flourish Together and Change the World.”
One reviewer notes that wishing to better understand Islam, a Christian friend once asked US-based Turkish writer, intellectual and journalist Mustafa Akyol to recommend an English translation of the Quran for him to read. A few weeks later, the friend continued his conversation with Akyol. He had some thoughts and had been grappling with some passages he found troublesome — yet one thing struck him as the biggest surprise of all.
“I was expecting to read about the life of Muhammad, (like the four Gospels of the New Testament are centered on Jesus) but instead I read about the life of Moses more than anything else,” the friend wrote.
Moses is mentioned 137 times in the Quran, while Prophet Muhammad is mentioned (by name) just four times. That certainly is not just by chance, as Akyol points out in his new book, “The Islamic Moses: How the Prophet Inspired Jews and Muslims to Flourish Together and Change the World.”
The biblical characters and narrative were, in fact, intentionally central to the new faith Muhammad was cultivating and promoting across Arabia and beyond some 14 centuries ago.
Moses and his story were emulated by Muhammad, and the parallels are not hard to spot. Both men started as unlikely leaders — Moses, slow of speech, and Muhammad illiterate — and yet both ultimately led massively successful migratory, nation-building and military efforts alongside the establishment of new religious-legal systems: Jewish halacha and Islamic sharia.
In the book, Akyol examines further theological parallels, yet also explores historical encounters between the Jewish and Islamic worlds. The author finds these interactions especially important in the current geopolitical climate, in which many forget that for much of history, the Judeo-Islamic tradition was much more peaceful, fruitful and coherent than the Judeo-Christian one.
Some of those encounters — such as the mass migration of exiled Iberian Jews into Muslim lands in the 15th and 16th centuries — are well-known. Others — like Jews celebrating the initial Muslim conquest of Jerusalem, which facilitated some 1,400 years of nearly uninterrupted Jewish settlement in the Holy City after Christians had long barred them from residing there — are less well-known.
Akyol doesn’t overlook some of the darker historical periods in Jewish-Muslim relations, such as the persecution and forced conversions under the Almohad Caliphate, though he treats these as largely the exception rather than the rule, and I as a Rabbi agree.
Pray For A Peaceful Al-Aqsa Mosque – OpEd
Tens of thousands of Muslim worshipers prayed peacefully at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on the first Friday of Ramadan despite fears of unrest due to tensions over the Gaza war. The Islamic Waqf, which manages the holy site, announced that some 90,000 people attended the Friday midday prayer.
Israel had implemented safety restrictions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. During Ramadan, over ninety thousand Palestinians came to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam that is located in East Jerusalem.
This year Ramadan coincides with a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, which has largely halted fighting after a devastating war that left many thousands dead in Israel and Gaza.
Last year, amid the Gaza war, Israeli authorities imposed restrictions on visitors coming to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Only men aged 55 and older and women over 50 were allowed to enter the mosque compound for security reasons, while thousands of Israeli police officers were deployed across Jerusalem’s Old City and no major violence occurred.
By long standing convention, Jews are allowed to visit but not pray in the compound, which they revere as the site of their second temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
The Israeli government has said repeatedly that it intends to uphold the status quo at the Mosque, but many Palestinian use fears about the future of the Mosque as a flashpoint for violence. Last year, Israel allowed Muslims to worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque in the same numbers as in the previous year despite the war raging in Gaza and no major violence occurred.
There is open land on the Temple Mount, and a small Jewish house of worship “hologram”, which is a 3D projection created with lasers, could be built adjacent to the Dome of the Rock and 600 feet north of the Al-Aksa Mosque, provided that Muslims would agree to cooperate. Anyone who could arrange such Jewish-Muslim cooperation would really be the Messianic Ruler of Peace (Isaiah 9:5).
Christian support for such a cooperative venture would also be important, and anyone who can bring Jews, Christians and Muslims together in mutual respect and cooperation would surely fulfill the greatest of all Messianic predictions, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning knives; nation shall not take up sword against nation, they shall never again teach war.” (Isaiah 2:4)
Indeed, Jewish/Christian/Muslim agreements establishing world wide peace would not be possible without great spiritual leadership in all three communities. Thus, each Jewish-Christian-Muslim community could consider its leadership to be essentially Messianic, Indeed, such Jewish/Christian/Muslim cooperation would not be possible without great spiritual leadership in all three communities.
Thus, each community could consider its own leadership to be essential Messianic aids as is foretold: “Saviors [plural] will come up on mount Zion” (Prophet Obadiah 1:21) and this would fulfill the culminating verses of Isaiah’s Messianic prophecy as enlarged upon by Prophet Micah (4:3-5):
“They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning knives. Nation shall not take up against nation, they shall never again teach war, but every man shall sit under his grapevine or fig tree with no one to disturb him, for it is the Lord of Hosts who spoke. Though all peoples walk, each in the name of its God, we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.”
If each people truly follows the best of its own religious teachings; the Messianic Age of world wide peace will surely have arrived, and then-and only then-will the Jerusalem Temple of Solomon be rebuilt, and God’s Holy Kingdom established on earth.
A total of 51,600 deaths in Gaza were reported by the UN, as of January 14, 2025, including 7,000 from natural causes and 2,000 killed by Hamas. War-related fatalities were: 22,600 civilians and 20,000 combatants for a civilian/combatant ratio: ~1:1 The writer, a board member of Honest Reporting, has closely reviewed the data for 15 months.
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib says, “From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate.” I say we can make it truly aspirational by making it focus on both people first and the land second. “From the river to the sea Palestinians and Israelis should be freed of hatred and suffering by ‘a two state for two peoples sharing of the land peacefully solution.'”
As the Qur’an states: “Good and evil deeds are not equal. Repel evil with what is better; then you will see that one who was once your enemy has become your dearest friend…” (41:34)
And as the Qur’an states: “‘Believers, be steadfast in the cause of God and bear witness with justice. Do not let your enmity for others turn you away from justice. Deal justly; that is nearest to being God-fearing.” (5:8)
Rabbi Allen S. Maller
Allen Maller retired in 2006 after 39 years as Rabbi of Temple Akiba in Culver City, Calif. He is the author of an introduction to Jewish mysticism. God. Sex and Kabbalah and editor of the Tikun series of High Holy Day prayerbooks.
Vatican Expresses Solidarity With Muslims During Ramadan Fast
By CNA
By Hannah Brockhaus
The Vatican has expressed its solidarity with Muslims participating in the Ramadan fast, noting that Catholics also fast and do penance during the season of Lent and inviting greater dialogue and friendship between people of the two religions.
“Our world is thirsting for fraternity and genuine dialogue,” a March 7 message from the Vatican’s Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue said. “Together, Muslims and Christians can bear witness to this hope in the conviction that friendship is possible despite the burden of history and ideologies that promote exclusion.”
“Hope,” it continued, “is no mere optimism: It is a virtue rooted in faith in God, the Merciful, our Creator.”
In 2025, Ramadan runs from approximately Feb. 28 to March 29. It concludes with the three-day celebration of Eid al-Fitr.
The Christian season of Lent began on March 5 and will end on April 17 with the three days known as the Triduum — Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday — followed by Easter Sunday.
“This year, Ramadan largely coincides with Lent, which for Christians is a period of fasting, supplication, and conversion to Christ,” the dicastery said. “This proximity in the spiritual calendar offers us a unique opportunity to walk side by side, Christians and Muslims, in a common process of purification, prayer, and charity.”
The Vatican’s annual message for Ramadan was signed by the dicastery’s new prefect, Cardinal George Jacob Koovakad, and its secretary, Father Indunil Janakaratne Kodithuwakku Kankanamalage.
Pope Francis appointed Koovakad prefect of the dicastery at the end of January, filling the vacancy left by Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, who died in late 2024.
An Indian from the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, Koovakad was previously responsible for the organization of papal trips.
In its message, the interreligious dicastery noted similarities between the Muslim observance of Ramadan and the Catholic observance of Lent.
“By abstaining from food and drink, Muslims learn to control their desires and turn to what is essential. This time of spiritual discipline is an invitation to cultivate piety, the virtue that brings one closer to God and opens the heart to others,” it said.
“In the Christian tradition, the holy season of Lent invites us to follow a similar path: Through fasting, prayer, and almsgiving we seek to purify our hearts and refocus on the One who guides and directs our lives,” it went on. “These spiritual practices, though expressed differently, remind us that faith is not merely about outward expressions but a path of inner conversion.”
The dicastery said it wanted to reflect on how Christians and Muslims can become “genuine brothers and sisters, bearing common witness to God’s friendship with all humanity.”
“Our trust in God,” Koovakad’s message underlined, “is a treasure that unites us, far beyond our differences. It reminds us that we are all spiritual, incarnate, beloved creatures, called to live in dignity and mutual respect.”
“What is more, we desire to become guardians of this sacred dignity by rejecting all forms of violence, discrimination, and exclusion,” the dicastery continued. “This year, as our two spiritual traditions converge in celebrating Ramadan and Lent, we have a unique opportunity to show the world that faith transforms people and societies and that it is a force for unity and reconciliation.”
The Catholic News Agency (CNA) has been, since 2004, one of the fastest growing Catholic news providers to the English speaking world. The Catholic News Agency takes much of its mission from its sister agency, ACI Prensa, which was founded in Lima, Peru, in 1980 by Fr. Adalbert Marie Mohm (†1986).
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