The recent controversy over cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed has exposed a disagreement between Western secular democracies and the Muslim community over appropriate limits on public expression. Agreement on when or whether there should be limits on free speech remains elusive. Such an agreement appears to be developing between Anglicans and Muslims, at least if a report released today is accurate. In a dialogue meeting last week between delegates of the Anglican Communion and the Al-Azhar Al-Sharif Permanent Committee for Dialogue with Monotheistic Religions, the participants reportedly found consensus on the right to comprehensive religious freedom and on the related problem of limiting public expression.

Dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Muslim community occurs in a variety of places, much of it at the local level. At an international level, dialogue between the two communities is more difficult because there is no Muslim leader or authority that can speak on behalf of all Muslims. In the hope of building a basis for future dialogue, in 2002 the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar agreed to establish a dialogue. Al-Azhar is the premier Egyptian university and centre of Islamic scholarship. It is attached to the Al-Azhar mosque in Cairo. The mosque and the university were established in the 10th century CE. Al-Azhar is recognized in the Sunni Muslim community as an authority in Islamic jurisprudence. Al-Azhar has also formed a joint committee for dialogue with the Vatican.