{"id":5585,"date":"2005-07-12T07:54:40","date_gmt":"2005-07-12T07:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/a-muslim-opus-dei.html"},"modified":"2005-07-12T07:54:40","modified_gmt":"2005-07-12T07:54:40","slug":"a-muslim-opus-dei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/a-muslim-opus-dei.html","title":{"rendered":"A Muslim Opus Dei?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw the title of this<\/em> piece and was ready to let loose on ignorant bigots who equate solid groups like Opus Dei with terrorists…but er…no.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

           <\/p>\n

The project of spiritual activism in ordinary human affairs is familiar in the Sufi tradition; it is reflected in the role of many Sufi spiritual orders in public welfare networks across the Islamic world, from <\/p>\n

Morocco<\/p>\n

to <\/p>\n

Malaysia<\/p>\n

. Opus Dei is an entity within the Catholic fold serving to encourage piety as well as responsibility in public life. Today, among the Christian churches, the Roman Church often seems to stand alone in its understanding of the great challenges facing humanity. For example, L’Osservatore Romano<\/em>, the Vatican newspaper, reported in its English language weekly edition of June 8 that a Papal diplomat, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, addressed a meeting of the Council of Europe in <\/p>\n

Warsaw<\/p>\n

in May. On that occasion, the eminent representative of the pontiff pointed out the continuing threats to minority rights in Bosnia-Hercegovina and Kosovo, areas the rest of the European political and social establishment appear intent on ignoring.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

During the mass for Saint <\/span>Josemar\u00eda, I pondered an idea I have long considered. Opus Dei is well known for its positive role in reforming the economy of <\/p>\n

Spain<\/p>\n

, late in the Franco era, when it acted to energize entrepreneurs as well as to promote transparency and accountability in the Iberian business environment. This modernization was predicated on defense, rather than destruction, of traditional and conservative Spanish Catholic religious culture. Escriv\u00e1 incited his acolytes to ridicule leftists and secularists for their attachment to 19th<\/sup> century ideas, comparing belief in them to insistence on traveling by stagecoach. Similarly, Opus Dei has become associated with the improvement of Catholic university education, especially schooling in management, in Latin America as well as in <\/p>\n

Spain<\/p>\n

. <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

How would a Muslim equivalent of Opus Dei — reinforcing a conservative and traditional view of faith while embodying contemporary capitalist principles, modernizing education, and fostering the common good — affect the world of Islam? The more one examines Opus Dei the more it resembles, in a broad way, a Sufi order; it is a voluntary association of fervent believers who have come together with a common dedication to refinement of their spiritual understanding and strengthening of religious ideals in the public square. Any number of Sufi bodies in countries like <\/p>\n

Turkey<\/p>\n

could furnish the basis for such an influential development among Muslims. The largest Muslim country in the world, <\/p>\n

Indonesia<\/p>\n

, possesses multimillion-member organizations like Nadhlatul Ulama that serve community needs while also nurturing a moderate form of Islam. <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw the title of this piece and was ready to let loose on ignorant bigots who equate solid groups like Opus Dei with terrorists…but er…no.            The project of spiritual activism in ordinary human affairs is familiar in the Sufi tradition; it is reflected in the role of many Sufi spiritual…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nA Muslim Opus Dei? - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/a-muslim-opus-dei.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Muslim Opus Dei? - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I saw the title of this piece and was ready to let loose on ignorant bigots who equate solid groups like Opus Dei with terrorists…but er…no.            The project of spiritual activism in ordinary human affairs is familiar in the Sufi tradition; it is reflected in the role of many Sufi spiritual…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/a-muslim-opus-dei.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-07-12T07:54:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Muslim Opus Dei? - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/a-muslim-opus-dei.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Muslim Opus Dei? - Via Media","og_description":"I saw the title of this piece and was ready to let loose on ignorant bigots who equate solid groups like Opus Dei with terrorists…but er…no.            The project of spiritual activism in ordinary human affairs is familiar in the Sufi tradition; it is reflected in the role of many Sufi spiritual…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/a-muslim-opus-dei.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2005-07-12T07:54:40+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/a-muslim-opus-dei.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/a-muslim-opus-dei.html","name":"A Muslim Opus Dei? - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2005-07-12T07:54:40+00:00","dateModified":"2005-07-12T07:54:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/a-muslim-opus-dei.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/a-muslim-opus-dei.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/a-muslim-opus-dei.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Muslim Opus Dei?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}