Jacqueline Taylor Basker
It took me over twenty years to get my Ph.D. due to multiple problems in my life. But I persisted after NYU said I took too long, although my advisers loved my dissertation in progress. However, Oxford University in the UK, through the Graduate Theological Foundation, then accepted me and I received my degree and soon my first full-time college teaching job. It turned out to be in Amman, Jordan at the NYIT campus there, teaching Art History and Art. My dissertation had been about the symbol of the cloud as a theophany in early Christian art, with studies of this symbol in Christianity, Judaism and Paganism, but post degree I had begun researching this symbol in Islam. So, an opportunity to go to a Muslim country was exciting. I left for Jordan in 2007 and I have never left It; I still maintain a shared apartment there and visit yearly.
However, when I woke up February 28 to the news of missiles flying over my home and friends in Jordan I was in a panic and shared that with my morning prayer group. I had come to deeply love and appreciate the people of Jordan. They helped me become a better Christian. The Call to Prayer 5 times a day from my local mosque reminded me to pray the Daily Office. Everyone carried prayer beads and prayed them frequently. This inspired me to get out my rosary and carry it around praying when I could. But most of all was the Muslim’s acceptance of the will of Allah. Almost every sentence ends with Inshallah. If God wills it. God’s will is accepted in all things, sorrowful or joyful, since God is in charge. If things were bad, it was deeply believed that God would one day remedy the injustice, violence, pain and suffering. This produced a character of both strength and focus in my Muslim friends. Added to this was the amazing self-discipline of Ramadan, fasting from sunup to sundown for a month. Even the Christians in Jordan have a much stricter Lenten fast then we do in the Western Church. Often Christians might fast with the Muslims during Ramadan. The relationship between Muslims and Christians is inspiring in Jordan. They marched together for peace when Isis began threatening Christians. In today’s polarized United States, the anti-Muslim bigotry is horrific and recently displayed itself with a mob attack against my NYC Mayor, Mamdani in his home.
Living in Jordan was a blessing for me; visiting the Baptism site and the many sacred Christian, Jewish and Muslim sites there is a pilgrimage of hope. Jordan’s history shows that the three Abrahamic religions can co-exist together. And our role model, St. Francis, visited the Sultan, al-Malik al-Kāmil, during the war of the Fifth Crusade and emerged pleading for peace. He got into trouble asking for peace, and his great prayer “ Lord Make Me An Instrument of your Peace “ is still needed today.
Picture from my terrace in Amman of the Spire of the Orthodox Christian Church (left) across from King Abdullah Mosque's Minarets (right) 2016.