The first step to unity among the People of the Book is to gather in one place and sit down at one table.

One may not expect to find a Christian monastery in the mountains of Syria, much less one led by an Italian Jesuit. But Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi (The Monastery of St. Moses the Abyssinian) awaits the pilgrim willing to climb the hundreds of steps to reach it. Though monks first lived here in the sixth century, it has found new life since 1991 as a place of dialogue for Christians and Muslims.

Father Paolo Dall'Oglio, who first visited the ruins of Mar Musa during a retreat in 1982 and now leads the community of men and women, emphasizes Abraham as the patron of the monastery's work. "Abraham is the example of hospitality because he received the three angels," says Dall'Oglio. "He prayed that his son Ishmael be blessed by God and was also the father of Isaac. He's really a man with a big heart to be the father of all of us."

Dall'Oglio acknowledges that some may fear the encounter between Christianity and Islam. But he says the long history of coexistence in Syria and the rest of Middle East-the "human biodiversity" of the area-should give us hope for a common path forward.

"It's OK if we don't know what the future holds but still feel hopeful," he says. "The world has changed many times. We should try to breathe properly with that perspective. That will overcome our fear."

What is the connection between Christian monasticism and interreligious dialogue?

It's important first to know a little history. Christian monastic life started in Egypt and migrated quickly into the Jordan River valley and then north to this place. By the sixth century, hermits started to live here, probably a group of monks whose Christology was considered heretical. They came here to be close to the pilgrimage routes but away from the Holy Land, where those in power demanded theological orthodoxy.

These monks lived in caves and prayed together once a week. Not long after some started taking care of guests as well as the sick, old, and mentally ill, so there was a need for common services. That's how the community life began.

In the seventh century Muslims arrrived from the east. At the time of the invasion, this area was ruled by an Arabic Christian kingdom. When the Muslims came, many Arabic speakers remained Christian and still are today.

Christians were able to build churches and worship freely even after the Islamic invasion. As late as the 11th century, long after the Muslim conquest, they built the monastery church and decorated it in a magnificent way. There is still an Arabic inscription on the wall giving the Islamic date for the church's construction and the words, "In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate."

It's also important to know that a monastery is a place that is considered holy not only by Christians but also by Muslims. From the time of the Prophet Muhammad-may the peace and blessing of God be upon him-monasteries have been visited, respected, protected, and loved by Muslims; monasticism is really part of the Arab Islamic culture. When we speak about that civilization, we have to keep in mind that it was an Islamic, Christian, and Jewish civilization. Christians and Jews fully participated in creating that civilization.

So there was a climate of cooperation?

In Medina in what is today Saudi Arabia, when Muhammad came to power, agreements were signed to respect and tolerate Christians and Jews within the Islamic state. It's a constitutional, structural issue.

From the theological point of view, there is an enormous consideration for the Torah and for the gospel in the Qur'an. There is a deep conviction in the Muslim community that Jews and Christians have been created and called by God; in the Muslim view those communities come from heaven.

Though the Islamic vision of the future sees Islam as the last word of history, Christians and Jews will still be companions in the movement to the end. That's why the monastery is a holy, shared place.

How does this monastery fit in to that shared vision today?

Even though this monastery was abandoned in the 18th century, local Christians tried to keep it from becoming a ruin. Still, by the 1970s all the roofs had been destroyed. In 1975 I was sent by Father Pedro Arrupe, the Jesuit general, to commit myself to the service of dialogue between Christians and Muslims. That was the beginning of the second story of this place and how it became a place of meeting and of relationship.

I came here to pray for 10 days in 1982 and discovered three priorities for my life. I felt that the first priority was spiritual life. If we don't break out of the natural ethnic and tribal belonging, we can't open ourselves to breathe the wind of the Spirit. We will fight all the time just because we don't understand each other.

But with the Holy Spirit of God, the one who created heaven and earth, we breathe properly, and things can move and change. Contemplative life is something shared by our traditions, including Eastern and Western Christianity and the Sufi Islamic mystical tradition, so it can be a starting place for our relationship.

The second priority is simplicity of life, an evangelical asceticism, which means manual work. If I speak with Muslims, I would call it the "lifestyle of the prophets." In the Qur'anic tradition, most of the prophets were shepherds: David and Moses, for example. Jesus was the good shepherd, and Muhammad was a shepherd in his younger days.

The third priority is hospitality. Hospitality is a political program, the exact opposite of interethnic, intertribal, international fights. Hospitality is the real root of civilization because it goes outside the family to create relationships with and welcome the stranger. Through hospitality many things change.