'Inter-Religious Dialogue Is Indispensable'
The head of the Department of English, Kashmir University, Srinagar
on various issues related to Islam and inter-religious dialogue.

YOGINDER SIKAND
How does Islam look at the question of inter-religious dialogue?

When I look at the history of Islam, I see that Muslims have had,
broadly, two types of attitude, represented by two different kinds of
people. Paradoxically, both have claimed their authenticity from the
Holy Qur'an. On the one hand are people who have focussed on the
universal teachings of the Holy Qur'an and its exegesis in word and
deed by the Holy Prophet Muhammad [may peace and Allah's blessings be
upon him]. The Holy Qur'an says that all divine religions in their
original forms were revealed by God, and so a person is not a Muslim
unless he believes in all the Prophets and in all that was revealed
to them by God, in addition to what was revealed to the Holy Prophet
Muhammad. Muslim tradition has it that God revealed his religion [al-
Islam or 'the Surrender'] to all the Prophets, starting with Hazrat
Adam and ending with Hazrat Muhammad, and they were all Muslim
i.e., 'one who surrenders [to God's will]'.

There are said to have been 1,24,000 prophets in all, and the Holy
Qur'an tells us that there is no community or nation where God has
not sent any prophet. So, from this you can see how really universal
Islam is. This runs as a central thread throughout the Holy Qur'an.
It transcends the limits of time and space, and is actually the
essence of the Qur'anic teachings. On the other hand, there are
certain teachings of the Holy Qur'an that are specifically related to
the conditions and context of the Arabia of the Holy Prophet
Muhammad's times.

For instance, when the Quraish of Mecca declared war on the Muslims,
the Prophet was asked by God to take up arms and defend the Muslims,
and certain Qur'anic verses were revealed on this occasion. Now,
those verses are not to be read outside their particular historical
context. So, when the Holy Qur'an commands the Muslims to fight, it
does not mean to say that they should go about killing all non-
Muslims everywhere, at all times.

Rather, the verses commanding fighting have to be seen in the
historical context in which they were revealed--the declaration of
war on the Muslims by the Meccans and then God's command to the
Prophet to take up arms to defend the Muslims. Hence, these
particular verses are not universal. What is universal is that
everyone has to believe in one God and that some kind of revelation
has come down from God from the very beginning of the world through
different great human beings for all peoples.

One such revelation, which Muslims believe to be the last revelation,
is the Holy Qur'an.

Unfortunately, however, there are people who have got so enmeshed in
those parts of the Holy Qur'an which are related only to a particular
historical context, that they have tended to ignore the universal
message of Islam, which, as I said, is really the essence of Islam.
This situation needs to be carefully researched into historically,
with reference to the Holy Qur'an.

The portions of the Holy Qur'an that need to be seen in their
particular historical contexts do, however, have continuing relevance
and applicability insofar as situations or contexts may arise and
develop today or in the future similar to those that occasioned those
revelations at the time of the Holy Prophet.

Thus, a subtle distinction has to be made between the universal
elements of the Holy Qur'an and those aspects that are related to a
particular historical context. The former, as I said, are the pivot
and the spirit of the Holy Qur'an, which are applicable to all
situations. Now, if it is accepted that the universal teachings of
the Holy Qur'an--belief in the one God and service to humanity--are
indeed the basic foundation of the Islamic scripture, you can see how
positively Islam views the project of inter-religious dialogue.

'Inter-Religious Dialogue Is A Binding Duty'
On kafirs, communalism, and religious intolerance to an Islamic
theology of inter-religious understanding....

YOGINDER SIKAND

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, editor of the Urdu magazine Al-Risala and
author of numerous books in Urdu and English, is a leading Indian
Muslim scholar. He is an outspoken advocate of inter-religious
dialogue and communal harmony. He spoke to Yoginder Sikand on a wide
range of issues, from communalism and religious intolerance to an
Islamic theology of inter-religious understanding.

YS: What do you see as the root cause of the unrest in many Muslim
countries?

MWK: In order to understand what is happening in much of the Muslim
world today, you must remember that at one time the Muslims had a
vast empire, stretching from Spain in the west to India and beyond in
the east. All these territories than came under European colonial
rule. The Muslim intellectuals of that time, however, failed to
properly respond to the European challenge.

They did not give their society the sort of leadership that was
required. They saw European colonialism in terms of an anti-Muslim
conspiracy, a replay of the Crusades. They bitterly criticised the
Europeans as enemies of Islam. But that, I feel, was a completely
wrong explanation of the European success. Actually, it is one of the
laws of history that at one time one power is dominant and then it
fades away and then another power emerges.

So, in India you first had the Rajas, then the Mughals came and
finally the British. Then India became independent, and even now you
sometimes have the Congress and sometimes the BJP. So, as I see it,
the Europeans were able to conquer the Muslim world not because of
any anti-Islamic conspiracy but simply because of their technological
superiority.

I mean we knew of water only as water, or at the most we used it to
propel water mills to grind flour, but the Europeans went ahead and
used water to generate steam power. We fought with swords but they
used guns, so naturally they were victorious over us.

Now, as I was saying, the Muslim intellectuals of the last hundred
years, and even today, generally saw, and continue to see, European
and now American superiority in terms of a so-called grand anti-
Islamic conspiracy. So, you have these seemingly never-ending cycles
of violence in much of the Muslim world even today.

This hatred of all others that is filled into the minds of ordinary
Muslims is really very scary. When I was a child I was taught to
believe that the British were wholly evil and that nothing good could
be attributed to them. It was only later that I discovered the many
good things that they had done in India, such as building modern
schools and the railways.

I think if our intellectuals had told us that the decline of Muslim
power has nothing to do with any so-called anti-Islamic conspiracy
but because of the West's technological superiority, we would not
have had the sort militancy that we are witnessing today.

YS: So that trend of thinking is still very strong in much of the
Muslim world, is it?

MWK: Indeed. If you look at the sort of so-called Islamic literature
that has flooded the market you will see that most Muslim writers
continue to propagate the so-called conspiracy theory, branding non-
Muslims as evil enemies of Islam whose only mission in life is to
destroy Islam and the Muslims.

Just yesterday I got a letter from somebody in Kashmir, who wrote
saying that till recently he had been only exposed to the writings of
militant so-called Islamists, because of which he had been led to
believe that all Hindus, and all non-Muslims in general, are the
sworn enemies of the Muslims.