Father Munther Isaac at Masjidul Quds: A faithful voice of justice and interfaith solidarity

Father Munther Isaac’s address at Masjidul Quds offered a powerful interfaith call for justice, dignity and solidarity with Palestine, Africa and local struggles.

By PROFESSOR ASLAM FATAAR

Last Friday, January 2, at Masjidul Quds in Gatesville, Cape Town offered a moment of deep ethical power. Father Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Christian priest, stood in a Cape Muslim sacred space and addressed a congregation shaped by memory, conscience and compassion.

His presence honoured the mosque. His message honoured the people of Cape Town. His voice offered moral clarity and profound courage.

Father Munther spoke directly about Zionism, describing it as a political project that shapes land, power, race, belonging and violence. He spoke through the lived experience of Palestine. His words carried the life, pain and dignity of his people.

He helped the congregation understand how Zionism produces dispossession and deep harm for Palestinian families and communities. His voice emerged from experience, truth and care.

He also spoke about Christian Zionism, explaining how certain Christian expressions support Zionism through theology, politics and public advocacy. He explained how sacred texts can be mobilised to serve power rather than justice.

His analysis matters deeply to Muslims. Faith communities always face choices. Faith can uphold power, or it can stand with the oppressed. Father Munther’s message guided the congregation towards a faith life grounded in dignity and justice.

He called for principled opposition to Zionism as a moral duty, speaking from compassion, conscience and deep spiritual conviction. He called for human dignity and the protection of life and reminded us that the world depends on people who stand for justice with patience, love and courage. His words spoke to the moral heart of the Masjidul Quds community, and through it, to the wider city.

The gathering created a sacred circle of listening. The presence of a Christian priest in a mosque carried powerful symbolism. It demonstrated living solidarity and interfaith friendship grounded in justice. It showed faith traditions walking side by side with honour and respect. Cape Town gained a lasting ethical memory through this encounter.

Father Munther also helped shape a broader politics of solidarity. Communities across Africa face war, exploitation, poverty, hunger, displacement and fear. Many African societies bear deep wounds caused by political instability, violence, corrupt power and economic injustice.

His message offered strength for these struggles, as it does with the people of Venezuela, who are currently experiencing the direct consequences of the United States’ imperial impunity.

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Solidarity also speaks to South African public life. Our country lives with deep inequality. Families face hunger and social stress. Communities carry trauma. Many women experience gender-based violence and daily insecurity. Many young people feel abandoned by systems meant to care for them. A just politics of solidarity must include all these realities. It honours Palestine. It honours Africa. It honours local suffering in our streets, homes, schools and neighbourhoods.

Father Munther’s words also spoke powerfully to ethical traditions within Islam. Justice is a religious calling for Muslims. Concepts such as ʿadl, iḥsān and raḥmah sit at the heart of Islamic moral imagination. His speech touched these values with humility and respect, strengthening the moral energy already present within our religious communities.

Mosques matter in this wider ethical landscape, as do churches, temples and synagogues. They hold prayer and ritual, but they also carry civic responsibility. When places of worship open their doors to voices such as Father Munther’s, they deepen their public mission, shape conscience and nurture ethical citizens.

Masjidul Quds offered a profound public gift through this invitation.

Father Munther’s message centred life itself. He spoke of children, families, elders and homes. He spoke of memory, heritage and belonging. His tone expressed strength, dignity and grace. He carried a heavy burden and shared it respectfully with Cape Town’s community, inviting reflection, action and renewed commitment.

This moment affirmed interfaith solidarity at its highest level. It showed that Muslims, Christians, Jews and people of no faith can walk together in truth. It demonstrated that shared ethical purpose can bridge difference and foster compassionate human connection.

Cape Town received a gift that Friday. The Masjidul Quds congregation received a testimony – Father Munther Isaac’s second address in the mosque – that will live in memory and conscience. It strengthened South Africa’s long tradition of resistance to injustice, deepened solidarity with Palestine, widened care for Africa and energised responses to local inequality, gender-based violence and social fragmentation.

The event stands as a call to ongoing work. It invites continued learning, civic mobilisation, ethical scholarship and courageous public action. It encourages universities, schools, mosques, churches and community spaces to nurture strong moral cultures. It reminds us that justice requires sustained commitment, steady effort and compassionate strength.

In honouring Father Munther Isaac, we recognise a courageous priest, a faithful servant of his people and a powerful moral companion for South Africa. His presence enriched Cape Muslim public life. His words strengthened our ethical imagination. His message renewed our sense of shared human responsibility.

The Friday gathering at Masjidul Quds opened a horizon of hope and clarity. It reminded us that faith carries transformative power when it stands with dignity, justice and compassion. It invited us to deepen solidarity, widen moral vision and carry care for life wherever suffering appears. Through voices such as Father Munther’s, the long journey towards justice, mercy and human flourishing continues.

Aslam Fataar is Professor of Education Policy Studies at Stellenbosch University and has written extensively on education, ethics, inequality and social justice in South Africa and beyond. His work engages questions of moral responsibility, public life and faith-informed ethics, with a particular focus on issues affecting marginalised communities.

• Dr Rev Munther Isaac is a Palestinian Christian pastor and theologian. He pastors the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem and the Lutheran Church in Beit Sahour and serves as the academic dean of Bethlehem Bible College, and is the director of the highly acclaimed and influential Christ at the Checkpoint conferences. Munther is the author of The Other Side of the Wall, From Land to Lands, from Eden to the Renewed Earth, An Introduction to Palestinian Theology (in Arabic), a commentary on the book of Daniel (in Arabic), and more recently has published a book on women ordination in the church, also in Arabic. Rev Munther originally studied civil engineering in Birzeit University in Palestine. He then obtained a Master in Biblical Studies from Westminster Theological Seminary and then a PhD from the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies. He visited South Africa as the guest of Dr Imtiaz Sooliman of the Gift of the Givers Foundation.