Many Safe Havens: Reframing the Role of Refugees in Abrahamic Faiths
Refugee experiences are not just a contemporary issue, but are as old as our most sacred faiths.
by Grace Deitrick Johnson, 2024 Fall Associate
The sun was setting on July 7, 2023 as David and I walked out of Vienna’s largest synagogue following the Shabbat service. A former rabbi in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), David and I discovered a shared love of theology during our month-long German intensive class. Turning a corner, we stood under Vermählungsbrunnen, which depicts the marriage of Mary and Joseph from the gospel of James. David quipped, “You know all about this story.”
“Well,” I said, “it’s a little complicated.” I explained that I come from a tradition of Christianity that doesn’t hold this story as sacred. I expected highlighting this division within Christianity would spark hostility or confusion. Instead, David smiled. He asked me about being a minister in the Protestant church and graciously answered my questions about his experience. David’s invitation into his worship space and candid, thoughtful dialogue enriched my own faith and expanded my world to include more stories and ideas about God than I had ever allowed myself. Our individual religious texts and stories found new life when we put them into conversation with one another. Embedded in the work of religious freedom are the sacred texts and practices which shape communities into something bigger than themselves. While it is easy to isolate our unique and differing theologies, sharing them with one another can and will enrich our advocacy.
The Abrahamic faiths all hold stories and commandments in which refugees and forcibly displaced people play a crucial role. Some of these stories are unique to one religion, while others are shared among all three. Often, we refer to refugees and forcibly displaced people as being ‘on the margins.’ Indeed, many refugee communities know this to be true – they are relegated to powerless positions and often caught in the middle politically and religiously in both their country of origin and the place to which they flee. I posit, though, that forced displacement and a call to welcome the stranger are not on the margins of major faith traditions, but rather a central theme of sacred texts themselves. They demonstrate solidarity with the refugee search for safety and an imperative to offer that safe haven.
Judaism
Though Jewish people make up only 1% of the world’s population, over 20% of them alive today have left their country of origin. This is by far the highest percentage of migrants belonging to a major world religion. Throughout the entirety of Jewish history, followers of Yahweh have been forced to move for their faith, from the time of Moses to the 70 year exile in Babylon and beyond. Indeed, the defining feature of the Israelite people is their time “[walking] through the wilderness” from Egypt to the promised land of Canaan. This flight from Egypt informs Jewish ethics throughout the Hebrew Bible. In the book of Deuteronomy, Yahweh says,
Do not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there. That is why I command you to do this.
The call is clear: faithful Jews welcome the foreigner not just because Yahweh commanded it, but in remembrance of their own slavery in a foreign land and their redemption from oppression by following their God to a new land. Not only are the protagonists of the Jewish story political and religious refugees, their ethical code also commands justice for outsiders.
Islam
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) dialogue on Islam and Refugees notes that “in comparison to modern refugee law, hijrah [Islamic migration law] offers a broader definition of a refugee, and gives individuals, rather than states, the right to determine asylum.” Islamic law and tradition offers even more agency to individual asylum seekers than the UN standard. Though Muslim states rarely invoke hijrah formally, the ideas behind this law permeate Islamic thought and tradition. Like in the Hebrew Bible, Moses occupies a central place in the Holy Qur’an. The text draws strong parallels between the flight from Egypt and the Prophet Muhammed’s flight from Mecca to Medina, which sets the precedent for hijrah and marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar year. Forcibly displaced people are so essential to the faith’s continued existence that Islamic time is marked by them. In fact, the Qur’an commands believers to seek refuge in a place they can worship freely instead of enduring persecution. Surah 4 says,
When the angels seize the souls of those who have wronged themselves—scolding them, “What was wrong with you?” they will reply, “We were oppressed in the land.” The angels will respond, “Was Allah’s earth not spacious enough for you to emigrate?”….and whoever emigrates in the cause of Allah will find many safe havens and bountiful resources throughout the earth.
This command reminds Muslims that they may not always find safety to worship in their homeland. It is incumbent upon all Muslims to welcome refugees if they enjoy the security of religious freedom and to seek asylum elsewhere if they do not. Within Islam, a just society necessarily includes and reveres those who are forcibly displaced for their religion or belief.
Christianity
Nearly half of the world’s international migrants are Christians. The spread of Christianity for the last two thousand years has relied on diaspora in every corner of the globe, and the lived experience of many Christians is one of fleeing persecution or living as a religious and/or political minority. The Christian canon maintains many stories from the Hebrew Bible, including the flight from Egypt and the exile to Babylon. Most important and unique for Christian believers, though, is the life of Jesus Christ. The gospel of Matthew tells of toddler Jesus and his parents escaping to Egypt under the cover of night when the ruler Herod has a warrant out for the small “King of the Jews.” Jesus himself was a refugee for two years of his life. Later, the author of Matthew records a parable of ‘the sheep and the goats,’ when those who are blessed by God will be welcomed into the eternal kingdom. Jesus shares these words of welcome:
Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
The climax of the parable is Jesus’ statement that “whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (or by contrast, what some did not do for the least of these). A true Christian ethic must include tangible care for refugees and diaspora and recognize their vital role in the Christian story from Jesus to the present.
Shared Stories
Islam, Christianity, and Judaism all share the history of the Israelite people and the story of Moses. While the details offered in the Hebrew, Christian, and Islamic texts differ, the narrative remains the same: God is a helper and defender of those who seek liberation from oppression and cuts down the oppressors. This characteristic of God is woven throughout the Moses story in every text and instructs the ethics of each faith.
The hallmark shared story of the Abrahamic faiths is Abraham himself – a person who left his homeland for the sake of his God and is called faithful for it. The Hebrew Bible, the Christian Old Testament, and the Holy Qur’an all share a reverence for Abraham and look to his story as a focal point. In the Torah and the Christian Bible, God promises Abraham “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.” He brings his wife, nephew, servants, and many of his possessions on his journey. In this account, Abraham gains a legacy by following this God. The Qur’anic account, though, notes a dispute between Abraham and his father. Abraham vows to follow Allah and renounces the idols his family worships. Here, Abraham not only leaves his country, but also turns away from his ancestral religion. It is no small thing that the eponymous character of the Abrahamic faiths exercises the agency to settle in a new land with a new God - and can do so freely.
For all their theological differences, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity share a twofold understanding of forced displacement. First, those who must flee their home country in search of a place that allows them to freely think and worship find solace, community, and welcome in great figures of faith like Moses, Abraham, Muhammed, Jesus, and a God who sees and responds to their suffering. Refugees are not omitted from faith stories, but are essential to them. Second, those who can worship freely must offer hospitality to refugees and help cultivate a just world where the ‘fight for international religious freedom’ no longer needs to exist. Followers of Abrahamic faiths - and even those who see something substantive in their ethics of migration - can put these faiths in conversation with one another to advance a vision of a pluralistic society where everyone holds a right to worship, change their mind, and manifest faith in practice and community.
______________________________________________________________________
References
Ahmed-Zaid, Said. “Torah and Quran Offer Different Perspectives Rather Than Being at Odds.” Idaho Statesman,
February 1, 2022. https://www.idahostatesman.com/living/religion/article95450962.html.
Coogan, Michael et al., ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha:
An Ecumenical Study Bible. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
“Islam and Refugees.” United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, November 20, 2012.
https://www.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/legacy-pdf/50ab90399.pdf.
Kramer, Stephanie, and Yunping Tong. “The Religious Composition of the World’s Migrants.” Pew Research
Center, August 19, 2024.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/08/19/the-religious-composition-of-the-worlds-migrants/.
Muhammed Ali, Maulana, ed. “Surah 4:97-100.” In The Holy Quran: Arabic Text, English Translation and
Commentary, 68–69. Lahore, Punjab: Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam, 1991, emphasis mine.
Rashi, Tsuriel. “Jewish Ethics Regarding Refugees: Ideology and Realization.” Journal of Law and Religion 37,
no. 1 (2022): 153–66. https://doi.org/10.1017/jlr.2021.76.
“The Complete Tanakh (Tanach) - Hebrew Bible - the Jewish Bible with a Modern English Translation and Rashi’s
Commentary.” Chabad. Accessed October 21, 2024.
https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/63255/jewish/The-Bible-with-Rashi.htm.
“Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” United Nations. Accessed October 21, 2024.
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights.
