This is the beginning of a farewell package for the "Uniter," who has so divided the U.S.
It is the first installment of a collection of instances where diverse parties have found common ground in unexpected places.
Feel free to add resources demonstrating what the people, cultures, and religious faiths of the world have in common.
Eric Rangus reported on Broyde's experiences at Qom in the Emory Report, July, 2005.
http://www.emory.edu/...
Emory University professor of law and academic director of the Law and Religion Program Michael Broyde was invited to present a paper at Third International Conference on Human Rights, which took place May 14–15, 2005 at Mofid University in Qom, Iran. Themed "Identity, Difference and Human Rights," the conference was co-sponsored by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)
Broyde earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Yeshiva University in New York and was later ordained as a rabbi by that same institution, simultaneously earning his law degree at New York University. He long has wanted to keep one foot in law and the other in religion, which is what led him to Emory in 1991 and its Law and Religion Program (soon to merge with the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion) and his research areas of Jewish law and ethics, family law, and comparative religious law. He has served as rabbi for the Young Israel of Toco Hills synagogue since its founding in 1994.
Broyde made these observations about his experience at Qom, the ancient religious center of Iran, and noted these points of commonality between Jewish religious law and practice, and Islam in Iran:
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"There is a great deal of curiosity about Jewish law and Jewish ethics," said Broyde, discussing some of the conversations that followed his presentation. The majority of the conference presenters were Western, but the vast majority of the attendees were Iranian. Those who weren’t students were imams, and all were understandably interested in Broyde’s subject matter.
"I sat with many Islamic scholars talking about Jewish law and how it compares with Islamic law," Broyde said. "Islamic law has many features that are related to or even derived from Jewish law. We could point to a mother/daughter relationship between the two, in the sense that Islamic law starts developing from Jewish law around the year 1000. There is a clear interrelationship."
Academics on both sides agree on this relationship—both Islamic and Jewish law are committed to being full religious systems, regulating not only religious practice but commercial and family relations, for instance.
But like every mother/daughter relationship, to use Broyde’s description, the two don’t always agree. To take Broyde’s paper topic as an example, Jewish law’s views on excommunication differ from those of Islamic law. In the latter, excommunication is a form of punishment. Jewish law views excommunication as a form of social regulation. This distinction spurred a great deal of discussion both during the conference and in its downtime.
Broyde didn’t speak much with Mofid University students. There were language barriers and he characterized the students as reserved. He did have very robust conversations with imams who, contrary to some media images in this country and elsewhere in the West, were hardly fanatic. They did have strong opinions, though, which made for spirited and probing discussion.
"There is a difference between how one views faith as an academic and how one views it as an insider," said Broyde, adding that he came away with a much more detailed view of Islamic law.