On May 6, 2010, The Right Reverend and former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, accepted an invitation from the Dawoodi Bohra community of London and visited the community centre in Northolt, Ealing.
During his visit, Lord Williams was introduced to the community’s history and initiatives around the world and met with the community’s 52nd leader, the late His Holiness Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin.
Reproduced here is an archival record of Lord Williams' address, in which he reflected on his meeting with Syedna Burhanuddin and how the community’s rich heritage and Fatemi traditions brought back memories of a visit to Cairo. He also spoke of how people of different faiths can come together in friendship, sharing in the Almighty’s gifts and learning from one another.
An address by The Right Reverend Dr Rowan Williams
Today has been already a very memorable day. It has been among other things, a great grace and blessing once again to be able to meet His Holiness Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin.
It has been an inspiration to see the signs of his work, his teaching, and his example in his immediate family and his wider family - which is the community here.
Looking at some of the exhibition that has been so wonderfully prepared on this occasion, I was taken back for a moment to my first visit to Egypt about thirty years ago and my first visit to Al Azhar in Egypt. I remember sitting in the beautiful courts and cloisters of the oldest parts of that building and thinking that there was something very profound and spiritually deep about the Muslim witness of that Fatemid age. I did not know at that time that that spiritual depth, integrity and simplicity were still so vividly lived out in a community - like the Dawoodi Bohra community. And so for me this has been today a moment of making a connection with a time I remember with great gratitude to God.
It is sometimes said by Christians that the gifts of God are only truly received by us when we learn to give them to others and in all that has been set before me today in this visit - that has been the theme repeated in one context after another. The gifts of God shown in skill, in creativity, in the generous restoration of the great shrines of your tradition but also the gifts of God and the skill and imagination shown, in the medical work witnessed here also and, of course, in the wonderful prospect of the community development in Mumbai to which this community is so deeply committed.
The gifts of God are given and they are shared; and when they are shared, they become more truly our own. As I was reminded early on in my visit today, we agree together in recognising that that sharing of God's gifts can sometimes involve sacrifice. It is costly and painful sometimes to share God's gifts - to give up one's safety, one's life even - for the enrichment of the world that God loves and yet our faith and our commitment are what they are - because we believe that greatest of all gifts - love shown in sacrifice - has been poured out upon us.
So, as I thank you for the wonderful welcome I have received today and as I pray God's blessing upon the work that you continue to do, I hope and trust that we shall continue in that friendship based on the love that God has shown us. The love that is poured out in sacrifice. The love that allows us to enrich one another with the gifts God gives us.
In recent years, this community has been astonishingly generous in its support of the Christian/Muslim Forum and today I have received even more tangible evidence of that kindness. I want to acknowledge that with immense gratitude. It's not only about financial support. It is also about the sharing of gifts which is shown in the sharing of friendship.
We talk a great deal about dialogue between faiths, sometimes negotiation between faiths. Sometimes, sadly we talk about stresses and tension between the communities of faith; and the sad truth or perhaps the glorious truth is that the answer to all this complication is something very simple - It is the continuing creation of friendship. God has created us for friendship with one another. Only on that basis, can we share the gifts he gives. So, I thank you from my heart for the friendship you have shown. I pledge myself to guarding and furthering that friendship in the future. I hope and I trust that the hand of friendship will continue to be extended between us for the good of the whole world that God so loves.
Thank you.
