This Article was published in
The Frontier Post (January 01, 2011)
By Sahibzada Hussain Mohi-ud-Din Qadri
Owing to information explosion, the world has become a global village where happenings
in one part of the world can have a considerable bearing on the rest of the world.
The tools used for dissemination of information – such as the web and cell phones
lead to a change in attitudes among followers of different religions and cultures,
as well as performing educative and informative roles. Therefore, the need for efforts
to foster positive understanding and interactions among all religions and civilizations
has increased manifold in view of peculiar nature of threats posed to global order
and peace.
Different efforts were made in the past to create reconciliation among religions
but they could not bear positive outcomes. Mughal emperor Akbar, in 16th century
India, tried to bring Muslims and Hindus together by contriving his own ‘Din-e-Elahi’
(Divine Religion), which he thought could be rendered into a state religion to establish
a fundamental commonality among diverse peoples and a common identity. This was
an unnatural way of integration, and ultimately a failure. Likewise, the philosophy
of amalgamating ‘Ram’ (Hindu god) and ‘Raheem’ (Muslim God) espoused by the leaders
of the Bakhti Movement could not succeed.
The basic reason behind the failure of these efforts was their unrealistic approach,
which served to eliminate faith-based identity by imposing a uniform religion, foreign
to all.
Islam offers a realistic philosophy of dialogue among different religions and
faiths. It accepts the ideological diversity. Islamic history is replete with the
examples of inter-faith harmony. Islam has been a strong proponent of dialogue and
engagement among different religions and civilizations. The first Islamic state
established by the founder of Islam, where followers of three religions lived together,
was a perfect example of harmony and peaceful coexistence based on mutual respect.
The British encyclopedia Britannica writes about this realistic approach of Islam,
“Islam achieved stunning successes in the first phase because the followers of other
religions lived their life with complete religious independence during the period
of Islamic government.”
After all, it is important to understand contradictions and lack of uniformity
among peoples in order to build a harmonious society for the establishment of a
durable peace in the world. The respect for other religions and creed can only be
created after one has thoroughly understood the differences and diversity. The acknowledgement
of diversity and multiplicity tends to broaden our vision and create space for the
establishment of an inclusive society where the citizens enjoy equality before law
and have equal access to opportunities irrespective of their religion, colour and
race. This forms the basis on which different sects and religions can be brought
together for the pursuit of shared goals of human welfare.
The important principle Islam has worked out in this regard suggests the need
for creation of harmony among people, not religions because differences between
religions are natural and cannot be wished away. All divine religions also have
shared values and commonalities, which can lay the foundation of a peaceful world.
Peace and welfare of humanity constitute the essential message of every religion.
The Madina Pact issued by the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) is the written constitution
that acknowledged the non-Muslims such as Jews and Christians living in the state
of Madian as equal citizens and conferred all rights on them including the freedom
to practice their religion.
The world needs to grasp and implement this principle as a way out of our present-day
predicaments. The followers of every religion have their unique set of creed and
beliefs and no one has the right to denounce them under any pretext. The commonalities
among religions can be emphasized by understanding their differences. There are
so many shared areas such as education, social and welfare services, climate change,
social security, science and technology, multiculturalism and peace, which call
for concerted efforts through global partnerships and alliances.
The followers of different religions and faiths need to join their forces and
open the doors of dialogue and interactions to live peacefully and eliminate terrorism
and extremism. The UN has a key role to play in instituting a permanent mechanism
to make this happen. It can design an institutional response through broad-based
participation of the international community. We need to understand that the threat
to global peace comes from non-state actors who want to impose their highly bigoted
and radicalized version of religions on others. They use the fair name of religions
to justify their otherwise unjustifiable actions. We can only defeat these people
if we launch interfaith dialogue as a structured movement at the global level with
a view to building bridges among different civilizations. This process of interfaith
presents us with the only road ahead on the path of abiding peace, harmony and development.
