Abraham is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Jews and God; in Christianity, he is the spiritual progenitor of all believers, whether Jewish or non-Jewish; and in Islam, he is a link in the chain of Islamic prophets that begins with Adam and culminates in Muhammad.
Religious pluralism is a set of religious world views that hold that one's religion is not the sole and exclusive source of truth, and thus recognizes that some level of truth and value exists in other religions. As such, religious pluralism goes beyond religious tolerance, which is the condition of peaceful existence between adherents of different religions or religious denominations.
Islamic–Jewish relations started in the 7th century CE with the origin and spread of Islam in the Arabian peninsula. The two religions share similar values, guidelines, and principles. Islam also incorporates Jewish history as a part of its own. Muslims regard the Children of Israel as an important religious concept in Islam. Moses, the most important prophet of Judaism, is also considered a prophet and messenger in Islam. Moses is mentioned in the Quran more than any other individual, and his life is narrated and recounted more than that of any other prophet. There are approximately 43 references to the Israelites in the Quran, and many in the Hadith. Later rabbinic authorities and Jewish scholars such as Maimonides discussed the relationship between Islam and Jewish law. Maimonides himself, it has been argued, was influenced by Islamic legal thought.
Interfaith dialogue refers to cooperative, constructive, and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions and/or spiritual or humanistic beliefs, at both the individual and institutional levels. It is distinct from syncretism or alternative religion, in that dialogue often involves promoting understanding between different religions or beliefs to increase acceptance of others, rather than to synthesize new beliefs.
Interfaith marriage, sometimes called a "mixed marriage", is marriage between spouses professing different religions. Although interfaith marriages are often established as civil marriages, in some instances they may be established as a religious marriage. This depends on religious doctrine of each of the two parties' religions; some prohibit interfaith marriage, and among others there are varying degrees of permissibility.
Diana L. Eck is a scholar of religious studies who is Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies at Harvard University, as well as a former faculty dean of Lowell House and the Director of The Pluralism Project at Harvard. Among other works, she is the author of Banaras, City of Light, Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India, Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras, and A New Religious America: How a Christian Country Became the World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation. At Harvard, she is in the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, the Committee on the Study of Religion, and is also a member of the Faculty of Divinity. She has been reappointed the chair for the Committee on the Study of Religion, a position which she held from 1990 to 1998. In March 2012, Diana authored her book India: A Sacred Geography. She also served on the Humanities jury for the Infosys Prize in 2019.
The concept of God in Abrahamic religions is centred on monotheism. The three major monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, alongside the Baháʼí Faith, Samaritanism, Druze, and Rastafari, are all regarded as Abrahamic religions due to their shared worship of the God that these traditions claim revealed himself to Abraham. Abrahamic religions share the same distinguishing features:
Scriptural Reasoning ("SR") is one type of interdisciplinary, interfaith scriptural reading. It is an evolving practice of diverse methodologies in which Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Baháʼís, and members of other faiths, meet in groups to study their sacred scriptures and oral traditions together, and to explore the ways in which such study can help them understand and respond to particular contemporary issues. Originally developed by theologians and religious philosophers as a means of fostering post-critical and postliberal corrections to patterns of modern reasoning, it has now spread beyond academic circles.
David Frank Ford is an Anglican public theologian. He was the Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, beginning in 1991. He is now an Emeritus Regius Professor of Divinity. His research interests include political theology, ecumenical theology, Christian theologians and theologies, theology and poetry, the shaping of universities and of the field of theology and religious studies within universities, hermeneutics, and interfaith theology and relations. He is the founding director of the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme and a co-founder of the Society for Scriptural Reasoning.
The Interfaith Encounter Association (IEA) is an Israeli-based non-profit organization. Its primary purpose is to foster dialogue between different religious groups within the Holy Land. This is done on a grassroots level throughout Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
The Abrahamic religions are a group of religions centered around worship of the God of Abraham. Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch, is extensively mentioned throughout Abrahamic religious scriptures such as the Bible and the Quran.
Peter W. Ochs is the Edgar M. Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies at the University of Virginia, where he has served since 1997. He is an influential thinker whose interests include Jewish philosophy and theology, modern and postmodern philosophical theology, pragmatism, and semiotics. Ochs coined the term "scriptural reasoning" and is the co-founder of the Society for Scriptural Reasoning, which promotes interfaith dialog among Christians, Jews, and Muslims through scriptural study groups. He is also a co-founder of the Children of Abraham Institute, which promotes interfaith study and dialog among members of the Abrahamic religions.
Interfaith marriages are recognized between Muslims and Non-Muslim "People of the Book". According to the traditional interpretation of Islamic law (sharīʿa), a Muslim man is allowed to marry a Christian or Jewish woman but this ruling doesn't apply to women who belong to other Non-Muslim religious groups, whereas a Muslim woman is not allowed to marry a Non-Muslim man of any Non-Muslim religious group.
Edward Kessler is the Founder President of The Woolf Institute and a leading thinker in interfaith relations, primarily Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations, and is a Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge as well as a Principal of the Cambridge Theological Federation.
Prophets in Islam are individuals in Islam who are believed to spread God's message on Earth and to serve as models of ideal human behaviour. Some prophets are categorized as messengers, those who transmit divine revelation, most of them through the interaction of an angel. Muslims believe that many prophets existed, including many not mentioned in the Quran. The Quran states: "And for every community there is a messenger." Belief in the Islamic prophets is one of the six articles of the Islamic faith.
Living Interfaith is an Interfaith movement founded by Reverend Steven Greenebaum, which embraces the teachings of all spiritual paths that lead people to seek a life of compassionate action.
The idea that a common Judaeo-Christian ethics or Judeo-Christian values underpins American politics, law and morals has been part of the "American civil religion" since the 1940s. In recent years, the phrase has been associated with American conservatism, but the concept—though not always the exact phrase—has frequently featured in the rhetoric of leaders across the political spectrum, including that of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Rabbi Dr. Yakov Meir Nagen is an Israeli rabbi and author. Nagen is a leader in interfaith peace initiatives between Judaism and Islam and in encounters between Judaism and Eastern religions. He is the Director of the Blickle Institute for Interfaith Dialogue and the Beit Midrash for Judaism and Humanity. Nagen also teaches at Yeshivat Otniel and has written extensively about Jewish philosophy and Talmud.
Kelly James Clark is an American philosopher noted for his work in the philosophy of religion, science and religion, and the cognitive science of religion. He is currently Senior Research Fellow at the Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Professor at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids Michigan.
The Abraham Conference is an annual interfaith conference held in Australia and organised by the Affinity Intercultural Foundation in partnership with religious associations in Australia from the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communities in Australia.
