“Preserving and Promoting the ‘True and Holy’ in Islam: Revisiting Nostra Aetate at 60 from an African Perspective”
Speaking at the 60th anniversary celebration of Nostra Aetate, Dr. Moussa Serge Traoré, MAfr, a Roman Catholic priest from Burkina Faso who is committed to the promotion of Muslim-Christian dialogue in Africa and a lecturer at Tangaza University, invited participants to a critical African reflection on how the Church’s call to interreligious dialogue is received and lived on the continent. Opening with humility about his English and emphasizing the “African feeling” that shapes his thought, Dr. Traoré said his goal was not to give answers but to “provoke discussion” on how Africans can own and reinterpret Nostra Aetate in their contexts.
He began by reading key lines from the document, especially the Church’s appeal to “acknowledge, preserve and encourage the spiritual and moral truths” found in other religions. For Dr. Traoré, this is not merely a theological task, but a call to action: How do African Christians recognize, preserve, and promote what is true and holy in Islam?
Grounding his reflection in personal experience, Dr. Traoré shared his story as the child of a Muslim mother and a Catholic father. This identity shaped his vocation and understanding of faith. “I cannot remove that from my identity,” he said. His missionary work in Rwanda, Mauritania, and Egypt deepened this perspective of living among Muslims; he discovered interreligious dialogue not as theory but as life shared, where Christians and Muslims learn peace and reconciliation together.
Dr. Traoré outlined Africa’s growing intellectual contribution to dialogue through centers such as the Institut de Belles Arab (Tunis), Institut de Formation Islamo-Chrétienne (Bamako), St. Paul’s University (Kenya), and the Center for Interfaith Studies in Africa (CISA) at Hekima. He highlighted collaborative projects like the African Christian and Islamic Initiative (founded by John Azumah and Lamin Sanneh), the Sana Institute in Ghana, and the journal African Muslim and Christian Scholars, launched in 2021 to amplify African voices in interfaith scholarship.
From these experiences, he proposed two African concepts that could enrich Nostra Aetate’s vision, i.e., belonging to one another, a sense of deep interconnectedness expressed in ideas like ubuntu and mogoya, and the council of elders, a traditional model of communal discernment that mirrors both the Church’s synodality and Islam’s ijma (consensus).
Dr. Traoré argued that, from an African perspective, what is “true and holy” is “what belongs to God,” that which unites all people in worship and goodness. He suggested that Nostra Aetate’s teaching on Islam should go beyond viewing Muslims as individuals who submit to God’s will, recognizing instead Islam as a community of faith bound by a relationship with God.
Calling for new “transformative stories,” he urged African theologians to move beyond doctrine to storytelling that changes lives, like the example of Rabia al-Basri, the Muslim mystic who sought to love God purely for God’s sake.
Concluding, Dr. Traoré stressed that in Africa, dialogue must also confront the powers of evil represented by poverty, disease, violence, and division. True interreligious cooperation, he said, means Christians and Muslims standing together to heal their communities and protect life. “Evil divides,” he warned, “but we are called to belong to one another.”
By Pamela Adinda, HUC International Office and Communications Coordinator.
