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Advancing religious freedom through interfaith collaboration

1. Qur’an, 3:164

2. The Bible, Genesis 1:3

3. Qur’an 16 (The Bee): 93

4. Ahroni, Reuben, ‘Some Yemenite Jewish Attitudes towards

Muhammad’s prophethood’,

Hebrew Union College Annual

69 (1998): 94

An intercultural dialogue from within Muslim communities:

a global overview

1. The word ‘intercultural dialogue’ is used here in a broad sense to

include any form of planned conversation or activity conducted

between two or more different religious groups, concerning not

only theological but also social issues of religious significance such

as poverty, violence, crimes and environmental degradation. Thus

included within the popular usage of this word is ‘trialogue’ as

this term is sometimes used by Western scholars of religions when

referring to conversations between the three Abrahamic religions,

namely Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

2. Before the 1970s the prevailing wisdom in Malaysia was that followers

of different religions could conduct dialogues with each other in public

on any subject except religion, which was viewed as the most sensitive

of all issues. But this stance did not prevent the eruption of Malaysia’s

worst race riot of 1969 involving its two largest ethnic groups, namely

Muslim Malays and Buddhist Chinese. ABIM was established in 1971,

barely a year after the formation of the National Consultative Council

to address sensitive communal issues in the wake of the riot.

3. In particular, Muhammadiyah and Nahdatul Ulama were intellectually

impacted by the Himpunan Mahasiswa Islam (Assembly of Muslim

Students), led by Nurcholis Majid who was a leading exponent of

interreligious dialogue. His intellectual perspectives and his relatively

liberal interpretation of Islam attracted a large following among

students and academics, but were also widely criticized by segments

of the country’s ulama and intellectuals. His thought influenced a new

generation of interreligious dialogue activists.

4. Another major voice of interreligious dialogue contemporary to Majid

was Abdul Rahman Wahid, a former President of Indonesia (1999-

2001). Wahid became a public figure in 1984 when he assumed the

Chairmanship of Nahdatul Ulama founded by his grandfather, Hasyim

Asy’ari. Since then, until his death in 2009 when he was the Chairman

of Nahdatul Ulama, the founding leader of the National Awakening

Party (PKB) and the spiritual guide of the Wahid Institute, a think-

tank that he set up in 2004, Wahid established his reputation as a

champion of intercultural rapprochement, interreligious dialogue and

multiculturalism, nationally, regionally and globally. A highlight of his

presidency was the restoration of Confucianism as the country’s sixth

religion – in addition to Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Catholicism,

and Protestantism.

5. All the national organizations bearing the common name of Jama’at

al-Islami in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kashmir and Afghanistan

were the ideological offshoots of the original organization founded

by al-Maududi. Its intellectual appeal resided in a political

ideology centred on the idea of the Islamic state which it wanted

to establish in the whole region. The strength of Jama’at al-tabligh,

on the other hand, was in its spiritual appeal thanks to its non-

political and non-sectarian approach to Islamic spirituality in its

organizational programmes.

6. In 2002 the Justice and Development Party, under the leadership of

Recep Erdogan, emerged as the majority party in parliament. Erbakan

himself became Prime Minister for the first time in 1996.

7. Most prominent among the institutions that attempted to implement

the Islamization of the knowledge agenda were the five Islamic

universities of Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uganda and Niger.

8. The proclamation of 2001 as the United Nations Year of Dialogue

among Civilizations followed the General Assembly of the United

Nations’ 1998 adoption of a resolution on the need for such an

event proposed by the Islamic Republic of Iran under President

Khatami. The proclaimed event did materialize on 8-9 November

2001, but its significance was eclipsed by the 11 September tragedy.

9. The instilling of fear of Islam among the indigenous white populations

includes depicting a future Europe being transformed into an Islamic

colony called ‘Eurabia’ through its ‘Islamicization,’ the spectre of

whites becoming a minority due to ‘unacceptable fertility rates among

Muslims vis-à-vis the host communities,’ and the threat to Western

Judeo-Christian values from Islamic cultural values.

10. This used to be held at the Hedwig Dransfeld Haus in Bendorf,

Germany and hence became known as the ‘Bendorf Conference’.

It is now held annually at the Vereinte Evangelische Mission in

Wuppertal, Germany, and is in its forty-second year.

11. The Al-Waleed Centre in Edinburgh, for example, is “committed to

encouraging a better understanding of Islam and Islamic Culture” as

its mission statement points out.

The universal message of Sikhism to mankind

Guru Granth Sahib (Sikh scripture)

, p. 1136

2. Ibid. p. 1349

3. Ibid. p. 1144

4. Ibid. P. 611

5. Ibid. p. 473

6. Ibid. p. 15

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid. p. 853

9. Ibid. p. 1412

10. Ibid. p. 1105

11. Ibid. p. 1427

12. Ibid. p. 1299

13. Ibid. p. 1384

14. Ibid. p. 1245

15. Ibid. p. 141

16. Ibid. p. 62

17. Ibid. p. 463

18. Ibid. p. 8

19. Gopal Singh, Dr,

Guru Granth Sahib, English Version,

Vol 1, Some

Opinions, p XIV, World Book Centre, New Delhi, 1996

20.

Selections from The Sacred Writings of the Sikhs,

Translated by Trilochan

Singh, et al, UNESCO Collection of Representative Works: Indian Series,

Foreword, p 9, 1960

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