HEART/QALB...

What is at the core of Interreligious Relations? My long years living in the Muslim communities have taught me that the real key or the path to any kind of true relationship with a Muslim neighbor is through the heart.

The HEART, in fact, is not only the key or path to each other… but it is also the way we encounter God. The Spanish Mystic ‘Ibn ‘Arabi gave us this legacy…

* God is extraordinarily closes and proximate to the human heart (e.g., at S 8:24, "He passes between the man and his heart"). What truly matters is God’s uniquely all-encompassing divine knowledge of "what is in their hearts" (S 4:66, 33:51, etc.).

* The divine awareness of what is in the heart extends in particular to people's innermost intentions (especially in contrast to their words and ostensible actions). In consequence, ‘Ibn “Arabi speaks of the heart (as more commonly of the soul, al-nafs) as the enduring "self" or ongoing seat of our moral and spiritual responsibility, as at S 2:225: "...He will call you to account for what your hearts have earned...."

* The most obvious in his work is the consistent stress on the divine "responsibility", indeed the ongoing divine Activity, expressed in all the different states of our hearts, including especially our recurrent failures to "remember" God.

* The enlightened or divinely supported heart (whether in this world or the next) is said to be the locus of true Remembrance of God (dhikr Allâh, at S13:28).

* We also see God's sealing, veiling, hardening, locking, binding, closing, or frightening hearts - to hearts that as a result (of their own misdeeds or the divine reaction) are "sick" or "blind" and "suffering."

* There are also references to hearts that "fail to understand" (lâ yafqahûn), far more frequently than those who do perceive the divine "Signs," whose hearts are 'âqilûn (attentive).

* Thus there is the need to move from these "negative" or perverse states of the human heart to full awareness of God and the corresponding divine Peace and understanding - "softening" and "humbling" or "purification" and "strengthening" of hearts, to the necessity of a "sound" or "repentant" or "mindful" heart (qalb salîm or munîb).