Dr. Ali Rashid Al Nuaimi Rabbi, Oury Cherki and Rabbi Eyal Vered
Algerian born Israeli Rabbi Oury Cherki visited the United Arab Emirates where he held meetings with senior Muslim leaders to “build bridges” between Judaism and Islam. During the visit, a senior UAE official told the rabbi that Islam does not say that Israel is a place that the Quran demands be under Muslim control.
Rabbi Cherki was invited to the UAE after his “Open Letter to Islam” met with positive results around the world.
The visit was described as the first of its kind. While in the UAE he met with senior leaders led by H.E. Dr. Ali Rashid Al Nuaimi, Chairman of the Defense, Interior & Foreign Affairs Committee at the UAE Federal National Council.
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Other participants in this meeting were Sheikh Muhammad Talib al-Shahi, Director of the Preaching Department at the General Authority for Islamic Affairs and Endowments, Vice Chairman of the Sharia Committee of the Zakat Fund. During the meeting, Dr. Al-Nuaimi stated that the Islamist’s view, that defines Israel as “Dar al-Islam” “– territory for which Muslims are obligated to wage religious war to reconquer – is “a lie, fabricated only in the past 100 years.”
Al-Nuaimi seven went to far as to say that Israel does not need to make a case for itself to the world any longer commenting, “Stop trying to justify your [Israel’s] existence; you are an established fact, and Jews are part of the Middle East.”
Rabbi Cherki said Dr. Al-Nuaimi’s words constitute a “historic beginning toward building a bridge of faith between Judaism and Islam.”
The most central religious claim of Islam against Israel is that of “Dar Al-Islam,” according to which Muslims are obligated to use force to conquer the land that had previously been under Muslim control, he explained.
“Judaism’s main issue with Islam is,” said the Rabbi, “of course, that extremist Islamist views do not recognize the legitimacy of Judaism’s connection to the Land of Israel and therefore attack Israel because of it being “Dar al-Islam,” as it were. Islam’s distancing itself from this claim, as Dr. Nuaimi has done, and the recognition of Israel as a legitimate state will solve most of the acute problems between Islam and Judaism and will build between them a bridge of faith.”
At the meeting, Rabbi Cherki raised the issue of the need for the Islamic world to recognize that the Jews are a nation and not a religion – a topic of great consequence in Islamist claims against Israel’s existence. To his surprise, Al-Nuaimi replied that this is not a problem, Israel is legitimate regardless, and the Jews are free to define themselves as they see fit.
Rabbi Cherki also raised the topic of the closing of ijtihad – the mechanism of oral law in Islam, which ended centuries ago – and Al Nuaimi replied that the closing of ijtihad was a big mistake. This topic is particularly important for inter-religious understanding, as re-opening ijtihad will also allow for the re-interpretation of many hard verses in the Quran.
Rabbi Oury Cherki was born in Algeria in 1959. He moved with his family to France where he lived for several years and then immigrated to Israel in 1972. He studied Torah with Rabbi Zvi Yehuda HaKohen Kook in the Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva as well as with Rabbi Yehuda Leon Ashkenazi and Rabbi Shlomo Binyamin Ashlag. He was ordained as a rabbi and has been serving as the rabbi of the Bet Yehuda community in Kiriat Moshe, Jerusalem. Rabbi Cherki teaches at Machon Meir and is the head of the Noahide World Center.
