The oldest cathedral still standing dates to the eighth century and sits on one of the original seven hills of old Amman. Inside, Father Nabil Haddad, executive director of the Interfaith Coexistence Research Centre, speaks to us about Jordan’s 120,000 Christians—about 6 per cent of Jordan’s population—who have sometimes had a rocky relationship with their majority Muslim neighbours.
Jordanian Christians hail almost exclusively from Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, but tensions have also developed between the various denominations vying for members.
“I believe we have a responsibility to emphasize the role of Arab Christians,” he tells us. “I’m a very selfish Arab Christian. I think we can do much better than we have in the past. We’re able to understand; we all share a tradition, a civilization. We shouldn’t sit back and be a disgruntled little minority. We should be a very prominent element. We’ll never stop being the witnesses and the peacemakers.”
The interfaith centre is the only non-governmental organization of its kind in Jordan, and was heavily involved in the creation of the Amman Message, a document presenting what describes as “the kind of Islam people want to live with—a moderate Islam,” and A Common Word Between Us and You, a document created by Muslim scholars and clerics which has received responses from many churches and organizations worldwide, including the Presbyterian Church in Canada.
