WASHINGTON, 15 December 2002 — “Reason and Revelation” is a planned documentary television series that directly resulted from the tragic events of 9/11, says Jacob Bender, the director. “It is both an artistic response, and a way to address the unfortunate anti-Muslim and anti-Arab stereotypes that flooded the American media in the months following the attacks.”

A producer and director for American and international television documentaries, Bender said his film will focus on the cross-pollination that took place in the Middle Ages between Judaism, Christianity and Islam; which he hopes will help “educate the American population about the ideals and values that Muslims, Jews and Christians share in common.”

The three men who are profiled in “Reason and Revelation” are three of the most influential thinkers of Western Civilization: Ibn-Rushd (Averroes) the Muslim, Maimonides the Jew, and Thomas Aquinas the Christian, he said.

The significance of these men is not lost in time. “The message of these three faiths is the sacredness of all human beings, and to denigrate one of these three Abrahamic faiths is to denigrate all of them.

“Contrary to the bigoted proclamations of Rev. Pat Robertson, who said Islam is intrinsically a religion of violence; Andalusia, in medieval Spain, was an oasis of tolerance in the European Dark Ages, when Paris and London were but small, backward villages.

“The city of Cordoba, birthplace of both Ibn-Rushd and Maimonides, was the most advanced city on the European continent. It had 400 libraries and street lighting — centuries before it was known elsewhere.”

It was through Islamic civilization that all the classical knowledge of ancient Greece, science, philosophy, math, astronomy, medicine, in addition to poetics, was saved and made available to the West by Arabic speaking intellectuals, he said.

Bender’s underlying theme in “Reason and Revelation” is to show that each man displayed considerable intellectual courage in advocating reason and learning, rather than superstition, as a basis for the religious life.

“Reason and Revelation” is a three-part documentary film for television that Bender envisions will be shown on American television, and will be distributed to educational institutions, mosques, churches and synagogues throughout North America.

“As both as an American and a Jew, I am convinced that our world cries out for better understanding between all people, and particularly Islam and its manifest tolerance for those referred to as ‘People of the Book.’ Islam refers to all of us as the children of Abraham, and part of the obligation within all religions is to create and work towards a more just world and to counter stereotypes, prejudice and racism wherever we find it.

“As one of many American Jews who have long disagreed with official Israeli policy and have always supported the right of the Palestinians to their own independent state, it is my hope that Arabs and Muslims, both in North America and the Middle East, will know that there are Jews like myself who are both working in favor of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East and also to improve relations between the three Abrahamic faiths.”

Asked if he has encountered resistance for support of the film, Bender said the film has generated tremendous amount of support from Muslim, Christian and Jewish scholars in North America; “primarily because Ibn-Rushd, Maimonides, and Aquinas are still so important, literally, to millions of believers around the world.”

“By describing the story of these three men in American society, I hope people will learn something they previously didn’t know. In this case, the sharing that took place in the Middle Ages, and the degree that we are in debt to the genius of Islamic civilization,” he said.

— Jacob Bender, director of “Reason and Revelation,” can be reached by email: [email protected].