Miscellaneous

  • ACW has been referred to in many important gatherings and speeches. Reverend Dr. Sharon E. Watkins, the General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the US and Canada, referred to ACW during the main sermon at the traditional Post-Inauguration Service at the National Cathedral for President Obama on January 21st, 2009.
  • Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright referred to ACW during her testimony before the US Senate the following month.
  • H.H. Pope Benedict XVI referred to ACW a number of times on May 8th and 9th 2009 during His Holiness’s Holy Land Pilgrimage to Jordan. On Saturday May 9th, during his address at the King Hussein State Mosque in Amman, H.H. Pope Benedict XVI said:
… and the more recent Common Word letter … echoed a theme consonant with my first encyclical: the unbreakable bond between love of God and love of neighbour, and the fundamental contradiction of resorting to violence or exclusion in the name of God (cf. Deus Caritas Est, 16).
  • In its second year, A Common Word yielded some practical steps and projects to ameliorate attitudes between Muslims and Christians: it was used by the NGO Habitat for Humanity as the basis for one of their joint projects. It also became the inspiration (and part of the Charter) for a new high-level Forum and Foundation/Institute dedicated to improving Muslim-Christian ties (the ‘C-1’);
  • A major documentary by 10,000 Films is being produced about it in Arabic and in English in order to bring the initiative to a wider audience, God willing;
  • A sub-office of A Common Word opened in Sohan, Islamabad dedicated to improving Muslim-Christian ties in Pakistan;
  • A joint Christian-Muslim religious reading list resource website was agreed to between a number of Christian and Muslim religious authorities so that Christians may understand Muslims as Muslims understand themselves and vice versa.
  • ACW was singled out for commendation by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2009 annual US Freedom of Religion Report, and it was also short-listed (together with the document’s author H.R.H. Prince Ghazi of Jordan) for the 2009, 2011 and 2012 Nobel Peace Prize.