Dialogue among the Abrahamic Faiths: Leonord Swidler and Ismail Raji al Faruqi on Interfaith Trialogue

Abstract

The trialogue of the Abrahamic faiths has emerged as a prominent idea in the interfaith dialogue movement of the 20^th century. Leonord Swidler, an American Catholic and Ismail Raji al Faruqi, a Palestinian American Muslim have a decades’ long association with dialogue movement. Both have three common fields of study; philosophy, history and theology that brought them to rigorous engagement in interfaith dialogue. They both joined the Temple University of America in the 1960s to teach religion and played their role to flourish dialogue as an academic discipline. They after realizing the need for and importance of dialogue, have come up with their specific notions of Deep and Meta-religious dialogue by presenting distinct rules to make it effective in the contemporary pluralistic world. Additionally, their active participation in trialogue as the representatives of Christianity and Islam has highlighted the role of Abrahamic faiths in making the world a peaceful place to live in. The present study is an analytical comparison of their work on trialogue.

Keywords: Dialogue movement, Trialogue, Deep Dialogue, Meta-religious Dialogue, Interfaith dialogue