Isa Jahangir, Maximilian Musindai, Hamed Fayazi

MONASTIC-MUSLIM DIALOGUE IN ASSISI AND ROME
OCTOBER 17-22, 2014

The monastery of San Masseo in Assisi was the site of the third DIMMID-sponsored dialogue with Iranian Shi’a Muslims. From October 17 to 21, 2014, six Muslim and seven monastic participants met together to reflect on the lived experience and spiritual meaning of community in their respective traditions. On October 22 the participants travelled to Rome for a visit to the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, a public event at the Pontifical Institute for the Study of Arabic and Islam (PISAI), and dinner at the home of the Iranian Ambassador to the Holy See, the Honorable Mohammad Taher Rabbani.

San Masseo is a restored twelfth-century Benedictine monastery located halfway between upper and lower Assisi, about a twenty-minute walk from the church and convent of San Damiano. Since 2011 it has been a Fraternity of the Monastero di Bose.

The Daily Program identifies the participants in the dialogue and indicates each day’s activities. A photo gallery can also be accessed on this website.

The participants in the dialogue have been invited to write up their personal reflections for publication in the next issue of Dilatato Corde.

Plans have been made to publish the proceedings of this dialogue. The proceedings of the first two meetings—in Rome in 2011 and in Qum in 2012—were published by Liturgical Press in its Monastic Interreligious Dialogue Series: Monks and Muslims: Monastic and Shi’a Spirituality in Dialogue  and Monks and Muslims II: Creating Communities of Friendship.

Previous issues of Dilatato Corde contain reports on the meetings in Rome and in Qum.  There and in the published proceedings you will find information on three Christian-Shi'a encounters that took place in the UK. They were organized by Abbot Timothy Wright and Dr. Mohammad Ali Shomali and inspired the meetings that have been sponsored by  DIMMID.