**1. A Case Introduced**

On 14 April 2015, the organization Souriyat Across Borders (SAB) hosted a performance of *Romeo and Juliet* in the attic of its Amman-based hospice<sup>1</sup> . As the primary base of operation for the organization, which was established by Syrian women in the Za'atari Refugee Camp, the rehabilitation center has become a refugee space and a place of recovery for those wounded (in the broadest sense) as a result of the war. While typically focused on physical therapy, issues of mental health increasingly have become a concern due to trauma as a result of the war and difficulties of life in exile and in refugee camps. For the past three months, the production's director Nawar Bulbul has rehearsed with ¯ his actors. Bulbul, once an established television-actor in Syria, became a public critic of the regime of Bashar al-Assad in 2012 and subsequently was forced to leave his hometown of Homs for asylum in Jordan. This production is neither his debut nor his first adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedies. In 2014, Nawar Bulbul used Shakespeare's ¯ *King Lear* as the basis of a sprawling epic, commingled with select scenes from *Hamlet*. <sup>2</sup> Whereas in that previous performance one hundred children were

<sup>1</sup> For more information, see Souriyat Across Borders, http://souriyat.org/. As the name states, the nonprofit organization is founded and operated by Syrian women (*suriy ¯ at¯* is feminine-plural form of Syrians).

<sup>2</sup> See (Hubbard 2014). Vimeo broadcasts a 2018 video documentary called "Shakespeare in Zaatari", directed by Maan Moussli, of Nawar Bulbul's production and the 2014 performance in Amman's Roman amphitheater. ¯

assigned and cast into the roles of that sprawling production, in this case, Bulbul only worked with four war-affected children as actors. Meanwhile, in Homs, four other children as actors have rehearsed and practiced for their roles in this production. With respect to children wounded as a result of the Syrian war, his theatrical experiments are particular instances of "drama therapy", which is premised on the notion that theater can become a medium oriented to and capable of addressing problems that arise due to violence and trauma. To this end, as a primary focus of SAB, the production serves as a collaboration between an artistic endeavor and a health-care facility that specializes in recovery for war-based trauma. Interestingly, moreover, the setting for the "Verona" of their *Romeo and Juliet* is not limited to the makeshift theater in the attic of this building in Amman, but it also extends to an undisclosed site in Homs. As the action unfolds, the tandem performances are mediated through a screen that divided and yet also connects the performers and audiences via Skype.

Fundamentally, theatrical drama can draw some interesting parallels with religious phenomena. On the other hand, the difference between religion and theatrical drama can become blurred so that the tension that holds them apart temporarily collapses. In an interview (Brook 1979), famed British theatre director and avant-garde student of the stage, Peter Brook characterized theatrical action in its truest form as "religious". He claimed: "The ancient theater clearly was, and theater must always be, a religious action: it is that by which fragments are made whole". For Brook, who does not believe "an entire society can heal itself, or be healed by one person or group of people", theatrical drama instead performs a crucial role and offers a potent medium for addressing open wounds of conflict, division, and fragmentation. As such, with these conditions, Brook acknowledged the requirement of a tragic element that dramatized political reality and the historical situation. In almost the same breath, however, he pivoted attention toward a proleptic quality that such events possess, when he stated: "The great force of artistic events is that they are temporary glimpses of what might be, and there is a healing process attached to these glimpses".<sup>3</sup> With respect to these events, according to Brook, a group of performers and audience do not stand apart as separate. Rather, on occasion, theatrical drama brings them together "into a form of communion" when simply storytelling is "recognizable", which for Brook is to say, "*like life*". For his conversation partner, Brook elaborates this dynamic process, not of two groups "one watching and the other doing", but rather as a "progressive heightening through which the two worlds become more sharply perceived by everyone who is present".<sup>4</sup> As such, by way of Brook's observations, there is a threefold sense by which theatrical action can be identified as "religious": for present purposes, we can identify these overlapping dynamics as "salutary", "anticipatory", and "communal".

For the sake of considering the case at hand: How does understanding "theatrical action" as potentially religious, in Brook's sense, shed light on this adapted performance of *Romeo and Juliet*? For Syrians, given the war-torn situation, how might this event provide a momentary sense of unity and even a "spiritual communion" either despite or enfolded within the exile, violence, division, fragmentation, and separation? What does this performance contribute about the tension between presence and absence? As these are some of the core questions underlying this inquiry, this article presents (re-presents?) an actual performance of Shakespeare's classic *Romeo and Juliet* in the form of a case study. As such, as outsiders, readers are asked to consider how we make sense of this adaptation, its appropriation of Shakespeare's famous tragedy and its unique amendments. Subsequently, the inquiry expands to introduce Frans van der Lugt S.J. (1938–2014), a Dutch Jesuit and Christian missionary in Syria, as a key figure to whom the revised script pays homage. For the Muslim-Christian matrix of this audience and performers, what may be the significance of such a gesture? Does this not encourage public discussion about theological matters? As a complex case in its own right, the possible identification of Frans van der Lugt as a Christian martyr bears theological and ethical implications,

<sup>3</sup> See (Brook 1979). The interviewer is not named.

<sup>4</sup> (Brook 1979, p. 48).

and thereby complicates Muslim-Christian dialogue. The performance, however, ultimately provides a different angle upon van der Lugt and his example possibly contributes to the Christian understanding of martyrdom. Reframing martyrdom by Christological keys of witnessing, through case reasoning, this exercise of comparative theology learns from Ibn 'Arab¯ı's theology of signs how witnessing truth fosters a more passionate affective response. Finally, as will become apparent, witnessing carries ethical implications. Theologically speaking, how do we witness to this performance and its aftermath? In the concluding reflection, this basic question is meant us into the performance.

As a foray into theatrical drama, overall, this case study affords an occasion for Muslim-Christian comparative theology. Thus, this article attempts to develop the basis for interpreting a dramatic moment as "religious" in the threefold sense that Peter Brook conveys. Moreover, implicitly, it contends that the discipline of comparative theology can be serviceable for such an endeavor, concluding that the performance may a glimpse of a radical and yet difficult hope. Ultimately, in the style typical of a case study, the goal of this article is to provide a starting-point for shared theological reflection between Christians and Muslims in virtue keys of solidarity, hospitality, and mercy.

## **2. Acknowledgements: (Mis) Uses of Theatrical Drama for Muslim-Christian Understanding**

To this end, the discipline of comparative theology is serviceable given its attention to particularities, resistance to generalizations, and willingness to proceed dialogically. However, there are potential risks in employing theatrical drama for interreligious understanding. In approaching this special issue, let us consider some interlocking points in order to address how we have to do comparative theology.

First of all, there is a strong tendency for North American and European perspectives to characterize the Middle East as a whole and its various parts, including Syria, with the metaphor of "political theater". In the context of Islamic studies, perhaps no one has so masterfully pointed out the consequences for misunderstanding Islam as Talal Asad. In his seminal lecture, "The Idea of an Anthropology", he suggests, this stylized use of "political theater" might actually deflect us from reckoning with some critical questions.<sup>5</sup>

Nevertheless, being so culturally embedded, theatrical terminology and dramaturgical methods can also preserve interreligious misunderstandings. He critiques the particularly "dramatic" quality of anthropological portraits of Middle Eastern (read: Muslim) politics. If one turns to Ernest Gellner's mechanistic interpretation of Islam as a network of "social causation" or Clifford Geertz's more "dramaturgical" perception of Islam, as Asad states: "What one finds in effect are protagonists engaged in a dramatic struggle". In those representations, a reader finds various tribes, armed nomads, the mediating saint, embattled clerical literati, the religious fervor of the city's poor, religious reformers, and demoralized rulers as, Asad critiques, a "representation of social structure that is cast entirely in terms of dramatic roles". Regardless, whether this poses a viable means of description and as illuminating as it may be, Asad fundamentally objects to how such narrative lacks "an account of the discourses that orient their behavior and in which behavior can be represented (or misrepresented) by actors to each other". For instance, Gellner's actors are without words, Asad notices, "they do not speak, they do not think, they behave". In the end, one may get the false impression that Islam is simply reducible to an intricate choreography about power, or, to borrow his words, "as a drama of religiosity" and so Muslim conduct as merely a "readable gesture".<sup>6</sup>

Due to his history of misunderstanding, therefore, should we assume that theatrical drama must be cast aside? One could be inclined to interpret Asad's own position as negating or denying the usefulness of theatrical vocabulary. To be clear, this would be mistaken in two ways. On the one hand,

<sup>5</sup> (Asad 2009, pp. 1–30); it is based on a paper originally presented at Georgetown University in 1986.

<sup>6</sup> (Asad 2009, pp. 12–13). Asad is critiquing (Gellner 1981 and Geertz 1968). The latter work remains a classic in the field of Islamic studies. For Asad's main point: "The analysis of Middle Eastern political economies and the representation of Islamic 'dramas' are essentially different kinds of discursive exercise that cannot be substituted for each other, although they can be significantly embedded in the same narrative, precisely because they are discourses" (Asad 2009, p. 10).

as already noted, Asad warns against a "fixed cast of Islamic *dramatic personae*". If dramaturgical method should be employed, in keeping with the metaphor of dramatic play, he might be read to stress as a minimal requirement that an account that should be composed of lines, those "very lines actors speak".<sup>7</sup> Thus, as he urges, anthropological accounts of Islam as basically narratives themselves "must try to translate and represent historically situated discourses as responses to the discourse of *others*".<sup>8</sup> Relatedly, when those voices direct attention "beyond the fixed stage of an Islamic theater", as Asad argues, they embody a particular way of enacting underlying sources of authority as "discursive traditions". As such, those figures of authority are also bearers of history who seek to instruct practitioners as actors regarding a "conception of what is *apt performance*". In sum, if Asad's approach still issues a forceful reminder of the challenges and problems concerning theatrical drama, as a conceptual metaphor, and particularly the repercussions for representing Islam, at the same time, he also concedes its usefulness for illuminating Islamic traditions.

From a comparative theological perspective, moreover, another point of learning that Asad's approach and scholarship may avail is indicative in his particular development of the notion of "apt performance". Notably, in *Genealogies of Religion*, Asad turns to *The Rule of Benedict* as a case-in-point, further developing the idea of "apt performance" specifically pertaining to a particular "programmatic text". Focusing on particular performance, as was his objective, opens multiple avenues into a set of "mediating practices". Nonetheless, concerning this Benedictine tradition, he wishes to disabuse his readers that meditations, chants, and—we might add—hospitality is not "theatrical", at least not "in the sense, to which we are now accustomed with all its implications of artful impersonation". Rather, he writes:

The program is performed primarily not for the sake of an audience but for the sake of the performers, who are learning to exercise and to develop the Christian virtues, to replace unlawful desires with virtuous ones, not to appreciate an aesthetic representation.<sup>9</sup>

Yet, thirdly pertaining specifically to the current issue, should we not be prepared to accept that theatrical drama has proven to be a very productive genre for Christians and Muslims in order to relate theological truths? Interwoven into the literary fabric and creative sensibilities, theatrical drama helps elucidate and make manifest religious realities. For Christians, the classic script about martyrdom seems to have followed the basic outline and template of the "Passions of the Martyrs Perpetua and Felicity", as the resistance of Perpetua (d.203) was staged as a spectacle in the Roman amphitheater.<sup>10</sup> Inaugurating a new form of Christian narrative that enacted for its readers a defiant faith in the face of religious persecution, the text seemed to summon Christians in the Roman Empire to emulate their example. As for Muslims, on the other hand, heroic accounts of those who died courageously in battle against the aggression of the Quraysh¯ı are enshrined in the biographical accounts (*s¯ırah*) of the Prophet Muhammad.<sup>11</sup> As Michael Cook is right to point out, among Sunnis there is not "anything remotely so dramatic to aid in the commemoration of the martyrs" as the *ta'ziyeh* ("passion plays"),<sup>12</sup> a tradition reinvigorated in the 1960s that rehearses and re-enacts the paradigmatic sense of suffering, sorrow, and redemption that the martyr's death of Imam Husayn (626–680) signifies. In sum, theatrical drama has proven integral for select discursive traditions of both of these religions.

At another level, fourth, theatrical drama might even disclose certain possibilities for interreligious understanding. Let us return, by way of illustrative example, to the observations of Peter Brook, who

<sup>7</sup> (Asad 2009, p. 15).

<sup>8</sup> (Asad 2009, p. 10).

<sup>9</sup> (Asad 1993, pp. 140–41). For the Christian source of historical theology that Asad credits and from which draws in this exposition, see (Leclercq 1979).

<sup>10</sup> (Musurillo 1972, pp. 106–31). For historical context, see (Heffernan 2012).

<sup>11</sup> (Ling 1983).

<sup>12</sup> See (Cook 2007, pp. 133–34).

cites *ta'ziyeh* performances as the "most living form of mystery play that still exists". To illustrate the threefold sense of theatrical action, in 1979, he recalled,

I saw in a remote Iranian village one of the strongest things I have ever seen in theatre: a group of 400 villagers, the entire population of the place, sitting under the tree and passing from roars of laughter to outright sobbing—although they knew perfectly well the end of the story—as they saw Hussein in danger of being killed, and then fooling his enemies, and then being martyred. And when he was martyred, the theatre form became a truth—there was no difference between past and present.<sup>13</sup>

Many scholars of Islam, including Talal Asad himself,<sup>14</sup> have tended generally to use these stories of the martyrdom of the first imams as a prime example of "ritual drama". As such, they have largely focused on how the performers and enactment, and largely neglected the audience. When audience is discussed, it is usually downplayed as aesthetics or chalked up "theatrical" to a less than ethical matter to "theatrical". What Asad's critical approach neglects is the event character of such moments. In effect, as Brook's account is meant to illustrate, by a work of theatrical action a theological truth is disclosed. As Brook himself recognizes, what these Iranian Shia villagers were witnessing is what he characterized as "an incarnation", which is to say, "at that particular moment [Husayn] was being martyred again in front of those villagers".<sup>15</sup>

Considering these points, I venture to suggest that "witnessing truth" provides in the multiple senses of the term an indispensable concept for developing the ethical implications of Muslim-Christian comparative theology. According to the renowned Catholic theologian Karl Rahner, witnessing not only "involves an intrinsic reference to someone else", as a manifest gesture witnessing signifies "that in which in which someone communicates himself and, moreover, by the most intense use of his own freedom in so disposing of himself that thereby a corresponding decision is evoked in some other person too".<sup>16</sup> Although the term may conjure Christian missionaries, in juxtaposition to proclamation, Catherine Cornille argues a defining character of interreligious dialogue is "mutual witnessing", which presupposes the "possible presence of truth" in another religion and "the possibility of being captivated and compelled by the witness of the other".<sup>17</sup> In this sense, witnessing is at its core a dialogical concept. For the sake of addressing the Syrian refugee crisis, in 2017, reformed theologian Joshua Ralston proposes "witnessing" as a theo-political framework for Muslim-Christian encounter as "an ongoing practice of bearing witness to God and God's coming justice".<sup>18</sup>

For consideration of this case, that is, an Arabic performance of *Romeo and Juliet* that is set between a hospice attic in Amman and a hidden theater in Homs, witnessing truth might invite shared theological reflection between Muslims and Christians. What is missing in Talal Asad's conceptual approach, according to Muslim theologian Martin Nguyen, is the "crucial role of the Divine in the unfolding of tradition". As such, theologians can account for the human role in constructing tradition, and also permit the possibility that it is "not merely about past and present, but about past and present in which God's working are manifest".<sup>19</sup> By attending to this case, and given the ongoing Syrian crisis, the idea of "witnessing truth" not only provides a basic theological framework, it also an interpretive key that coheres this event between the performers and audiences and, furthermore, fundamentally accounts for its intercultural perspective and interreligious focus. If witnessing implies a progressive clarification of the truth, at the same time, it also should also become responsive to the demands of justice.

<sup>18</sup> See (Ralston 2017, cited at p. 31).

<sup>13</sup> (Brook 1979, p. 52).

<sup>14</sup> See (Asad 2003, p. 78).

<sup>15</sup> (Brook 1979, p. 52).

<sup>16</sup> (Rahner 1975, p. 153). For a dialogue with this fundamental structure of this dogmatic notion with encounter, see (Baird 2005).

<sup>17</sup> See (Cornille 2011, cited at 63).

<sup>19</sup> See (Nguyen 2019, pp. 58–61, cited at 60, 61).

As this case illustrates, theatrical drama invites new perspectives and can shed light on theological questions. Being profoundly dialogical, theatrical performances require an audience. As this case suggests, it creates new space and demarcates a basis for fostering a commitment toward Muslim-Christian solidarity. As the performances incarnate an open illustration of the power of theatrical action to create new possibilities, as grounded as it is, the play also takes liberties to address Shakespeare to its particular political and religious situation. Although the play will seem to flout conventional rules for staging Shakespeare, on this issue, the adaptation remains quite faithful to a basic truth that in his wisdom—and perhaps especially through his tragedies—Shakespeare "forces us to regard any perspective on human actions as deeply provisional, historically bounded and contextually determined".<sup>20</sup>

## **3. Reassembling the Scene: Adapting Shakespeare's** *Romeo and Juliet* **in Exile**

On 14 April 2015, an Arabic performance of *Romeo and Juliet* is set to stage for the fourth of what will be ultimately five performances. This run is extended from the two initially planned. In the attic of hospice for war-affected children, much of the primarily Syrian audience is constituted of patients who were carried up from their beds on the floors below. Others are themselves, like the director and actors, refugees from Syria who are living in Jordan as the Syrian civil war is entering its fifth month and when the bombardment is escalating in many parts of the country. Entitled *Romeo and Juliet Separated by War*, the production is the result of four months of rehearsals in this practice space, located above where four young actors are recuperating from their war wounds and trauma. From the original script, William Shakespeare's tragedy about "star-crossed lovers" provides a lens by which performers and audiences alike can observe the dilemmas that they are facing. While the script itself furnishes themes like family feuds, bloodshed, vengeance, this play concentrates upon the love and longing at the heart of the relation between Romeo and Juliet. Although implicit, still, the war is front and center and none needed a reminder from Shakespeare of the siege in Syria, "where civil blood makes civil hands unclean" (1.i.2).<sup>21</sup> In this version, the Juliet and the "Capulets" perform in the shadows of secret stage in Homs, while Romeo and the "Montagues" are acting in Amman. In Amman, where a screen faces the stage and connects performers and audiences and, in turn, a camera captures the theatrical action in Homs for transmission to Amman. As for the satellite equipment that the production uses in Homs, according to rumor, it was a gift of the Syrian Free Army that had stolen it from the government.

The love and conflict at the core of Shakespeare's tragedy plays out as the action unfolds in this performance and, of course, is further intensified across this geographic divide. According to an eyewitness account, twelve-year-old Ibrahim, the actor who plays the young Romeo, had lost his mother and three sisters to government bombardment.<sup>22</sup> For a year, he has lived as a patient at SAB. Several surgeries rescued his leg from amputation, and, for the majority of the performance, he traverses the stage on crutches. Disabled, he acts without the full use of his right leg. Nevertheless, for one of the play's crucial scenes, a duel with the "fiery" Tybalt, he tosses one of the crutches aside and wields the other as his "sword" to the applause of his audiences. Himself a native of Homs, Ibrahim is allowed to look homeward through this digital connection. Along with Romeo, the Amman audience encounters in Homs his Juliet, a thirteen-year-old girl, who is wearing a *hijab* and also a mask, which conceals and protects her identity from government surveillance. For Romeo, in Amman, in order to interact with Juliet he needs to face a screen as Juliet, trapped in Homs, returns his gaze.

<sup>20</sup> See (Kottman 2013, p. 246). For a similar challenge to hegemony of Aristotelian tragedy, see (Burrow 2013, pp. 1–22). On the regnant theory of drama, see (Aristotle 2012); this theoretical approach seems to focus on doing as opposed to creating.

<sup>21</sup> The in-text citations are to the critical edition of William Shakespeare's *Romeo and Juliet* (Shakespeare 1990) and follow the standard form of citation to the act, scene, and line.

<sup>22</sup> See (Taneja 2015). This performance did not receive as much high-profile media coverage as Bulbul's 2014 production of *King Lear*; there are several reflections by observers available in English and French e.g., (L'Homme 2016). Some photographs and video stills are available online: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/photographs-of-a-syrian-romeo-and-juliet-2015 (accessed on 6 April 2020).

Written into this script are two narrators, one Homs-based and another Amman-based, who perform a couple of roles. The narrators not only help bridge the action between this spatial divide, they also moderate the technological disruptions. Often, already fragile, the internet connection is attenuated, and so the narrators attempt to moderate the technological disturbances that regularly interrupt the performance. The yearlong siege of Homs looms in the background. In one performance, exploding bombs, which were being dropped from Russian and Syrian planes, are audible as the sound reverberates and echoes faintly in the Homs video feed. During another performance, on at least one occasion, the audience waits as long as an hour for the action to resume. Without a reliable internet connection, circumstances sometimes demand patience. When reconnected, from Homs, the child-narrator vows, "I swear, if we are not caught by bombs or explosives, and if Juliet is not fired at by a sniper, we will still be here in the next scene".

Additionally, in this adaptation, Shakespeare's character of Friar Lawrence is renamed. At the start of the second act, the audience in Amman sees a young actor, disguised with a mask and wearing a cardboard crucifix around his neck. He assumes the name "Father Frans". In his scenes, a sketched crucifix hangs above. Through the Homs video feed, the performers and audience in Amman hear an organ solemnly accompany the actor as he prays. As the couple's sole confessor, the character in this version is an homage to Frans van der Lugt, a Dutch priest whose death in a besieged neighborhood of Hom's urban center coincides a nearly year to the date of these performances. In this version, after the first encounter between Romeo and Juliet, the action swiftly escalates to their secret marriage. Imagine, for a moment, the audience of Syrian refugees sitting in the attic of that Amman hospice, waiting with Romeo, as they behold Juliet's image as she is broadcast from Homs. Their exchanges and pledges of love attempt to bridge a vast divide, while periodically that fragile connection is interrupted without much assurance that it would be re-connected. On each occasion, the reality of war produces a sense that the audience is not simply a conscious, critical observer, but likewise is immersed in the drama unfolding before them. In the clandestine wedding scene, in Homs, Juliet kneels before Father Frans, and places a ring on her own hand. In Amman, with his vow, Romeo does the same.

What perhaps would be most notable to an outsider witnessing Bulbul's *Romeo and Juliet* would be the change in climax. Rather than following Shakespeare into the play's final act, the action comes to an abrupt halt. Instead of witnessing the series of tragic and misguided accidents that culminate in the deaths of the love-stricken protagonists, for a moment, the actors disrupt the escalating tensions and frenetic pace of the plot in word and deed. In this version, distinctively, the narrators also play a role by intervening occasionally in the action of the performance. It is the narrators, not the apothecary, who hand the vials of potion to Juliet and Romeo. There was no deception to confuse Juliet's family, no murder of Paris, no double suicide between the "star-crossed lovers", nor other tragic accidents that precipitate this "fateful" conclusion. Rather reimagined in light of the teachings of Father Frans, the couple does not venture unwittingly to the climatic violence and their eventual suicides. Rather, "to reflect Father Frans's message and the desire of all present for the conflict to end",<sup>23</sup> Bulbul revises Shakespeare's tragic conclusion in the third act. Drawing from the original text, with reference to the Friar Laurence's plot to marry them, the narrator states, "The good monk Frans described what he wanted them to do". Interrupting the narrator, however, Homs-based Juliet declares, "Not true!" Seizing that ill-fated vial of sleeping potion, she hurls it to the ground. In Amman, following her, Romeo does the same. For those in Amman, next, they watch a young girl, who is acting as one of Juliet's retinue and the "Nurse, steps forward, crying: "Enough killing! Enough blood! Why are you killing us? We want to live like the rest of the world!"

Immediately, the audiences erupted in applause. After this climatic event, the players steered the action to the "curtail call". As the actors acknowledged the audience, first, they turned to bow toward the impaired, recuperated, and exiled audience of Syrians in Amman, and then turned to bow toward

<sup>23</sup> (Taneja 2015).

those sitting in that secret location in Homs. Chants broke out in the attic of the hospice. On this evening, many in this primarily Syrian audience-the director included—reacted to the performance in tears.

If the Palestinian people are best described as a "telephonic" people, as Mourid Barghouti<sup>24</sup> put it in his memoir to characterize the diaspora as a network of disembodied voices, Syrians may find some poetic resonance in the fragile, virtual, attenuated, interrupted communion that survives despite separation this performance attempts to convey. The appearance of "Father Frans", on the other hand, also raises questions regarding the figure behind the character, whose influence presumably shaped this adaptation. What might this performance suggest about him and his character?

## **4. A Key Player Remembered: Frans van der Lugt's** *Vita* **in Summary**

As a beloved figure in Homs, in the most basic sense, the performance offers a way of introducing the story of Frans van der Lugt. In some respects, his is a familiar one. Born into a wealthy family in Den Haag, Netherlands, on 10 April 1938 van der Lugt received his schooling through Jesuit education until he entered the Society of Jesuit as a novice in 1959. Once in the novitiate, he undertook his philosophical studies in Nijmegen through 1964, after which he was assigned to missionary fieldwork in Lebanon. In Bikfaya, he studied Arabic and was eventually transferred to work at a Jesuit secondary school, St. Jean Damascène in the Homs neighborhood of Bustan-Diwan in the late 1960s. During his theological studies at the Jesuit scholasticate in Fourvière (Lyons), he earned a graduate degree in psychology. In between another advanced degree in psychology, he returned to the Levant. As his adopted home, Homs became the place where he initiated a range of ministerial services to meet the needs of not only Christians but also Syrians as a whole. His story, in short, is a biography of a European Jesuit missionary assigned to fieldwork at moment of significant religious and cultural transformation.<sup>25</sup>

If the Second Vatican Council represents a specific theological event that for Catholics, as Massimo Faggioli claims, "teaches us to look at the global and cosmic *katholon*, but especially to understand the global and cosmic through the poor, through 'the margins,'"<sup>26</sup> the life of Frans van der Lugt might yield important lessons. A few idiosyncratic aspects may distinguish his own vocation. For instance, while in Belgium for his tertiate formation in 1974, he began to develop an interest in Zen meditation, a practice not typical for his missionary province in Lebanon and Syria. Once back in Syria, he became an active organizer and exponent of developing communities and care facilities for the mentally disabled, adopting the L'Arche model which Jean Vanier founded in Trosly, France. Outside Homs, he established an institute called al-'Ard ("Earth") that focused this mission locally as it developed to serve roughly fifty disabled people from nearby families, both Muslim and Christian. The center became the site for Muslim-Christian service that was directed toward environmental problems. A central component of that organization was *Dar al-Salam¯* ("the House of Peace") where all were invited to develop their spiritual practice. Five years later, in Damascus, he replicated this mission under the aegis of L'Arche. Through these initiatives, Frans van der Lugt helped bring Muslims and Christians together through concrete projects of collaboration and social justice.

For Syrians, probably, the most distinct of van der Lugt's many initiatives was a youth-focused endeavor, which he developed under the simple title of *al-mas¯ır* ("the hike"). For Muslim and Christian youth, whether a daily excursion or an eight-day retreat, he created and operated an interreligious space that was mobile. Customarily, he offered daily mass, to which Muslim youth were invited, while the shared contemplation and reflection often took the form of Zen meditations. For this and other endeavors, regardless of religious identity, many Syrians referred to him as *Abouna Fransis* ("our Father

<sup>24</sup> See (Barghouti 2000).

<sup>25</sup> For a timeline, see (Begheyn 2015, pp. 12–14).

<sup>26</sup> (Faggioli 2013, p. 816).

Frans"). What is particularly striking, in sum, is how van der Lugt fostered and exemplifies a dialogical and an interreligious commitment into his Jesuit identity.

A possible reason for the relative neglect of his story might be that he lies in the shadow of other Jesuits. Within the Society's Near East province, in recent decades, fostering a commitment to dialogue and interreligious collaboration has become a key apostolic goal. Prominently, for example, the Italian Jesuit Paolo Dall'Oglio, who received his degree in Islamic studies and has written widely on Islam from a Christian perspective, revived the monastery Dar Moussa as a place of interreligious hospitality prior to his abduction in 2013.<sup>27</sup> For the Syrian context, in contrast, van der Lugt's narrative may appear too simple and ordinary. On the other hand, given the magnitude of the Syrian crisis, his role might also seem marginal at best. Amidst increased bombardment, during the season of Lent in 2012, he gave witness to a Dutch readership of the interreligious solidarity as several dozen Syrians were becoming like a "family". As the children of an Orthodox family sit in the front row during the Palm Sunday mass, he asked the Muslim imam living with them to read a passage from the Qur'an. As ¯ Easter approached, for his readers, van der Lugt remarked how seamlessly his Muslim neighbors encountered this basic structure of death, life, resurrection ("Dood, leven, verrizen"). What van der Lugt admires most in them is how refugees are so well received, simply stating: "The parable of the good (*barmhartige*) Samaritan is in their blood".<sup>28</sup>

Nevertheless, over the course of twenty months, van der Lugt continued to carry out his ministries to Christians and Muslims. As the fighting intensified in Homs, at the turn of 2014, the United Nations exhorted foreigners to evacuate before or by February. When 1400 foreign nationals did evacuate, van der Lugt chose to remain despite the siege, with his own decisive commitment made to advocate on behalf of those Syrians still entrapped in Homs. Explicitly challenging the international community, in both French and Arabic, he initiated a series of YouTube broadcasts so as, from these margins, to be explicitly "representing the Christian people of this area" and also to address his global audience on behalf of their Muslim neighbors. Although they were enduring this suffering, he proclaims, they did not want to die of starvation, and they endure with a "divine patience". Later, amidst increased bombardment, on 6th April 2014, van der Lugt wrote to a Facebook community of Syrians scattered throughout the diaspora. In that final message, he witnessed how faith could help them bear these difficulties, "to be patient and to continue to hope". In concluding his meditation, he also shared their anticipation of "Easter, reflecting on crossing from death to resurrection". In that brief missive, he expressed, "Light shines from a dark cave feel like we are in the valley of the darkness, but we can see that light far away, leading us to life again . . . We wish this resurrection for Syria". He signed off with his distinctive slogan "*ila' al-am ¯ am¯* " to console and encourage his companions "forward, onward".<sup>29</sup>

On the next day, 7 April 2014, that is, two days prior to Palm Sunday, a masked gunman—whose identity and motive still remain unknown—forced his way into the Jesuit residence in Bustan al-Diwan. After van der Lugt was pulled into the atrium of the modest complex, he was shot twice.

Immediately, in reaction, the archbishop of Nijmegen declared van der Lugt a "martyr". Before a general audience in the Vatican on April 9, Pope Francis invoked his name as a reminder of the widespread suffering in Syria. In the same atrium where van der Lugt encountered his death, his funeral ceremony drew not only fellow Jesuits, neighboring Christians, but also many Muslims, including Sunni and Shia imams. In Homs, mourners gathered around his simple burial site in the garden of the Jesuit residence. To the extent possible, spontaneously, this site has served as a pilgrimage destination for a number of Syrians. For days, both Christians and Muslims prayed at his tomb. At the grave, one Muslim woman who identified as Joumana reveals, "I confided my secrets and he consoled,

<sup>27</sup> (Montjou 2006). For useful cultural context of this movement, see (Loosley 2008).

<sup>28</sup> See (van der Lugt 2012). This article's title can be translated as "Joys and Sorrows from Homs". For a reprint, see (Begheyn 2015, pp. 63–70). The Dutch term *barmhartige* is better translated specifically as "merciful" or "compassionate".

<sup>29</sup> The original Facebook post has become deactivated. For a reprint, in Dutch, see (Begheyn 2015, pp. 75–76).

he was a priest for me".<sup>30</sup> For diasporic Syrians, his name subsequently became a place to gather virtually and literally offered a source for mutual veneration between Muslims and Christians.
