About us

Members of the Forum at Lambeth Palace

The Christian Muslim Forum is made up of three groups of people - Presidents, Specialist Members and Scholar-Consultants. The Presidents are representative religious leaders from both faiths. Read about the Presidents here. Details of the Specialists are on the Specialists' pages

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How did the Christian Muslim Forum begin?

The Christian Muslim Forum is built on friendship between a group of Christians and Muslims, showing how faith is a catalyst for good relationships and welcomes the 'other'. This friendship began with a small group of Muslims and Christians working on the Archbishop of Canterbury's Initiative in Christian-Muslim Relations. This grew from Archbishop Carey's comments in 1997, "For the sake of the health of this country, we need to find ways in which members of our two communities can meet regularly together in a more structured way than has been possible up to now." His remarks were received warmly and positively by leaders of the Muslim community, leading to the Initiative's Listening Exercise between 2002 and 2004. This link takes you to the Listening team's report, presented to Archbishop Rowan Williams in July 2004 04-06-18_Archbishops_Initiative_Report.pdf The Christian Muslim Forum is made up of members of the Muslim and Christian communities - Sunni, Shi'a, Anglican, Catholic, Baptist, Pentecostal, Methodist and Coptic Orthodox - and includes various traditions, Evangelicals, Deobandis, Barelwis, Sufis. We believe that:

• the time is right for Christians and Muslims to develop strong and committed relationships
• we can work together for the benefit of both faith communities and wider society
• faith is a resource for peace, conflict resolution, understanding and the valuing of all human beings
• friendship between people of different faiths is encouraged by our traditions

What we aim to do

• To weave a web of open, honest and committed personal relationships between leading Christians and Muslims;
• To encourage shared reflection on the spiritual, ethical and practical values of the two traditions in order to offer resources for citizenship in our society;
• To build a shared public platform to strengthen Christians and Muslims working together for the common good in partnership with others;
• To develop channels of communication to help Christians and Muslims together to respond to events which test our relationship.

The Forum needs You!

As an individual, group or organisation, you can be part of the Forum network. In partnership with the Secretariat projects will be undertaken, based on the six key areas of bilateral concern to Christians and Muslims.

How we work

Our work is based on partnership working with other relevant groups and organisations; developing and maintaining channels of communication between a diversity of Christian and Muslim groups; and liaising with the media. Presidents Publication date: 5 January 2009 Statement Publication date: 30 May 2007 Annual Reports Publication date: 30 April 2008 Our Strategy Publication date: 7 May 2008