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Preface ROWAN WILLIAMS Iwant to begin by expressing deep gratitude to King’s College London, from the Principal to the Dean and the Dean’s colleagues and staff to all those who have helped to make us so welcome here. As the Principal, Professor Trainor, has said, this is a place naturally equipped for the kind of dialogue that we have sought to pursue; it’s a very great pleasure to be able to have the public part of our proceedings here in this historic setting. A public word of thanks is also due to Georgetown University, to President DeGioia and his colleagues, for the extraordinary support that they have given over the years to Building Bridges. Since very early on in the life of this project, our association with Georgetown has been deeply significant in focusing and resourcing our work. That connection has become deeper and deeper over the years, and as the whole project moves into a new phase, with Georgetown taking a still more leading role in the organization of these seminars, I want to thank President DeGioia very much indeed for the wonderful privileges that our link with Georgetown has brought. The initial impetus behind Building Bridges was the events of 9/11. In the months following that appalling catastrophe, my predecessor, Archbishop Carey, believed it necessary to draw together as many as possible of the representatives of Christianity and Islam who were willing to engage seriously with each other about mutual understanding and cooperation in a very fragile global situation. So the first, relatively brief, Building Bridges seminar was held at Lambeth Palace in January 2002. And on that basis, it was thought that Building Bridges ought to move to a regular and perhaps rather more searching level—that is, that seminars should involve longer, more extended conversation, making considerable use of study and discussion in small groups, and that we should seek to draw together as many scholars and people of intellectual influence in the xxi xxii Preface Christian and Islamic worlds as we could on an annual basis, to explore themes of common interest. So, just over a year later, in April 2003, the first extended Building Bridges seminar was held in Doha, in Qatar. Subsequent seminars have been held in a variety of locations, in Christian and in Islamic contexts, in academic settings and in settings more obviously in the midst of dialogue on the ground, for example in Sarajevo and in South East Asia. In the last ten years, dialogue between Christians and Muslims has become, one might almost say, fashionable. The question is bound to arise: what is distinctive about what we do in Building Bridges? I want to note two things. The first is that we have not sought a high public profile. While there are plenty of people who work at that level, and there are plenty of people who address the political and geopolitical issues, there are perhaps fewer groups that seek to build lasting and intimate relationships among themselves, and that seek to give priority to the study of each other’s scriptures. So we have not sought a high public profile; we have not sought to make statements and issue communiqués. We have sought understanding of a particular kind. And by keeping a very strong core of regular participants so that we get to know each other quite closely, we have attempted to model a patience in dialogue that is fundamentally oriented toward getting to know one another’s hearts. That takes me to the second distinctive point, which I have already noted in passing. We have focused our attention very, very strongly on shared study, both of our sacred texts, the Bible and the Qur’ān, but also of texts from our traditions. We have therefore tried to watch each other engaging with our sources. It’s easy enough to comment at a distance on how other people use their sources; easy enough, perhaps, to make a sketchy survey of other people’s sources and texts and think you understand them. But what actually changes things and moves us forward is watching somebody else engaging at depth with their own sacred texts and with their own tradition. So we have modeled our meetings on that principle. We engage with what we believe God has given us to engage with, in holy text and in tradition. And we invite our neighbours and friends to watch us doing that, and to learn a bit...

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