We are all climbing up the same mountain, although the paths are different. Théodore Monod and Islam

Abstract

Teodor Monod (1902–2000) scientist, explorer, Protestant, worked on improving Christian and Muslim relations by means of his own private contact with Muslims. In doing so he was not interested in combining ideas and practices coming from different sources into one syncretic form. However, being open to searching for – as he put it – the manifestations of God’s Spirit, he was not limited to his own religious tradition and perceived the manifestations of God’s Spirit beyond the conventional limits of his own religion, which confirmed him in his own religious beliefs. For Teodor Monod the contact with Islam through the teaching of Muslim mystics (Sufis) of the tijaniyya-hammaliyya brotherhood – Cerno Bokar and Amadou Hampâté Bâ – constituted a practical confirmation of his already shaping views on the possibility to reach the truth and its consequences as well as on religious pluralism. In the multi-religious world Monod looked for the solutions to give testimony of his own faith in a non-intrusive yet firm way, believing that there are numerous paths leading to God. His admiration for Islam referred firstly not to the system itself – if you may put it so – but to the particular people living in the system and observing its indications in a way which did not result in a hiatus between the faith and the practice of life. It harmonized strongly with the ideals inherited by Monod with his religious and family tradition. Neither Teodor Monod’s attitude nor the ideas that he proclaimed and put into practice constitute a model followed by a significant group of his fellow believers. Monod was more of a “lone sailor” wandering through life and showing that the goals which may seem impossible to some can be reached, in fact