I have just returned from five days in the Sultanate of Oman, spent mainly in Muscat and including a trip to the impressive Jabal Shams mountains. This autumn, the Beirut-based Near East School of Theology (NEST) organised, for the first time, a retreat trip for the Institute’s lecturers, students and staff. More than twenty participants had the opportunity to discover this hospitable country, its traditional Arab culture and, at the same time, its unique religious diversity. The trip helped to strengthen personal bonds in a semi-holiday atmosphere within a safe and welcoming setting, whilst enabling mixed groups to organise daily participatory celebrations. Unfortunately, three students were ultimately unable to obtain visas. It is impossible to cover the full four-day programm in a single blog post. I will certainly return to this topic. Here, I would like to outline the approach of the partner organisation that invited participants on this trip and organised it: the Al Amana Interfaith Centre (www.alamanacentre.org).

Its origins date back to 1891, when the Reformed Church in America (RCA) chose the Middle East as a focus for its missionary work. As early as 1893, it opened a Christian bookshop, a school for formerly enslaved children, and organised evangelism campaigns. It then opened a hospital in 1900, which over the decades became a leading centre in the country for the treatment of leprosy and infectious diseases, to the extent that it was commissioned by the government. By the late 1980s, the Church changed its approach, closed its school and sold its hospital to the Sultan for a symbolic 1 Omani rial ($2.60). It retained the right of first refusal on the land in question.

Al Amana means ‘sacred trust’ in Arabic. The leaders have gradually transformed the missionaries’ house into a centre for intercultural and interfaith learning. They developped programms to facilitate encounters between Christians and Muslims. Taking advantage of the country’s open and tolerant religious policy (the Sultanate has five officially recognised church denominations as well as Hinduism, all of which freely practise their faith in a designated area which we visited), the Centre refocused its mission towards mutual understanding and the pursuit of harmony between different cultures. Having arrived in the 19^th century in a spirit of crusade, it has evolved into a service organisation, offering meetings, background information on Ibadite Islam—the predominant form in the country— partners for dialogue, opportunities to visit cultural sites, immersion programms and opportunities to live alongside local residents, as well as seminars on dialogue or reconciliation with groups from conflict-affected regions around the world or with local leaders – whilst respecting the principles governing religious life in Oman, namely that it is forbidden to persuade anyone to change their religion. This also applies to Sunni and Shia Muslims living there. Social harmony and the avoidance of sources of conflict between religious communities or tribes form the bedrock of the functioning of society as a whole. The result is a daily life characterised by calm (students accustomed to Beirut quickly noticed the complete absence of car horns in traffic!), hospitality, politeness and friendliness in social interactions. The Centre’s aim is to deepen our understanding of this world, which is so different from our own, yet which we continue to claim to understand on the basis of press articles and to judge according to our own ways of doing things, as if they were universally applicable. Al Amana offers opportunities and tools for learning and – dare we say it – for ‘literacy’ in intercultural dialogue. This requires a great deal of tact, humility and time, especially if one comes from those countries which are often portrayed in the Muslim world as imperialist and colonialist, or even idolatrous. Today, the Centre is integrated into the country’s religious functioning and acts as a dialogue partner for the government, and at times also serves as a centre of expertise and resources for managing the diverse modern Christian movements that are so new to the country. The Omani context, particularly its unique Ibadite tradition, is certainly more conducive than others to welcoming such an initiative. Oman has been an island of stability and calm for over fifty years, despite being surrounded by Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Iran, being barely more than an hour’s flight from Abu Dhabi, Dubai or Doha, and controlling part of the peninsula that forms the Strait of Hormuz, which is day by day in the news for bad reasons. Omanis are proud of their traditions and make no secret of it. Their tolerance is closely linked to their long history and the country’s geographical position, opening onto the Indian Ocean, and which has maintained trade links with India for several hundred years – or even longer if one takes into account the maritime Silk Road that passed through here before heading up the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea. The vast majority of the country’s 45 per cent foreign population comes from India. Added to this is a rather hostile natural environment, characterised by high temperatures, extensive desert and semi-desert areas, and steep, inhospitable mountains. These mountains were formed partly by volcanic eruptions, and their highest peak, Jabal Shams, is nearly four thousand meters high, offering extraordinary views of canyons and magnificent, rugged landscapes (see my Facebook post from 12 October and the subpage « voyager – Oman » of this website where I posted many others photos).