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If you think in stereotypes – religion is one of the thinnest ice to walk on. Watching the World News these days, it’s hard to not think in stereotypes, as you could come to the belief, that all Muslims preach Jihad against Christians, Christians can’t accept the existence of other religions besides their own and Jews still feel like the whole world has sworn against them and is up to eradicate them completely from our planet. Hindus don’t care about anything; if their neighbors are slaughtered or murdered, no worries – they will be reincarnated in a better form anyway. Buddhists are generally negative and only think about collecting money from their followers, to build new Temples and Pagodas – they will let everyone else in your Buddhist Community know, if you didn’t give anything this time; making sure, that the bad karma gets you in the end. How does that fit with the eradication of all greed, hatred and egoism?

You might say: yes, I’ve heard all that before – the reality is a bit different. In their foundations all religions are based on tolerance, respect, peaceful coexistence and human values in life.

Okay, but what happened to these values in the reality of our modern times? Did they get lost somewhere along the way? Surely the majority of Believers of the Great Religions are following their holy learnings, giving this knowledge to the younger generation and are basically accepting and respecting other religions, cultures, races or opinions.

Or aren’t they?

Are the holy writings (Bible, Koran, Tora, Tipitaka) only misinterpreted by todays more extreme representatives, like Preachers, Pope, Priests, Shamans or Imans. Or is there a war ongoing for the hearts and minds of ordinary people, to unite them and stand up against all other beliefs?

To form an Army of brainwashed, extreme-religious Clones?

What’s the deal about all this ongoing religious fighting in the world? Sunnis against Shiites, Israelis against Palestinians, Myanmar/Burma Junta against Buddhist Monks, China against Tibet and the Dalai Lama, Catholics against Gays and Lesbians, Arabs against Western Cartoonists, Al Quaida against the Western World, George Bush against a ‘world full of terrorists’.

All in the name of God! On who’s side is he anyway?

Is that the start of the feared Clash of Civilizations, as Samuel P. Huntington put it?

Will religious fighting create a New World Order? Who will win in the end?

Can there be winners at all?

Recently I found this article on the net and it confirmed my inner hopes, that there actually shouldn’t be a reason for some of the deepest conflicts of modern days; Muslims versus Christians and Christians versus Muslims. Leaders of both religions met already long, long ago and found out, that peaceful coexistence is possible and should be encouraged. They invited each other into their houses, eat, drank and discussed with each other and went home as friends afterwards.

Maybe we should pray some more, that God blesses our Leaders with more Sanity and Reason, instead of heaps of political and commercial interest.

Let’s hope, that a new generation of Religious Leaders can overcome all those hatred and follows in the footsteps of their ancient forerunners mentioned below:

Message from the Prophet is clear: coexist
by Hisham al-Zoubeir

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Washington, DC – As the world watches the terrible eruption of violence between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq and is subjected to sporadic communiques by vigilantes calling for violence against their opponents both within the Muslim community and without, many who are unfamiliar with Islam and Muslims may be forgiven for thinking the worst of both the religion and its followers. Yet in Islam and Muslim history, the precedent for religious co-existence is primordial.

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The Qur’anic view of the carpenter from Nazareth is clear: Jesus is called the Spirit of God, and the Messiah. Moses is described as the prophet to whom God spoke directly, without any veil. Muslims still revere those men, and their followers are accorded special places within the book of Islam.

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The Arabian Prophet, Muhammad, sent according to Islamic tradition as a “mercy to all the worlds”, showed us how these theological abstractions were exemplified in practice in the first interfaith meeting between Muslims and Christians – held some 14 centuries ago.

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A delegation of sixty Christians from a community about 450 miles south of the Prophet’s city, Medina, visited him in the year 631. During this three-day meeting between representatives of one faith-community with the founder of another, the model of Muslim ethics vis-à-vis the religious “other” was made explicit for all time. There are many lessons to be drawn from this encounter, but three stand out.

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The first is that neither the Christians nor the Muslims pretended to be other than what they were. The Christians insisted on Trinitarianism, and the Prophet rejected it as a matter of faith. Both sides believed that Christ was the Messiah, that he had been born without a father, and that he received revelation from God. There was no shying away from difference, but the search for common ground was primary. Remember the culture of the time – the Prophet held the upper hand as the leader of a powerful community – but he did not disrespect his guests, who were politically powerless.

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The second was that difference was not a cause of religious conflict. When the Christians suggested they go out into the desert to perform mass, the Prophet invited them to carry out their rituals within his mosque. He did not partake of their rituals, but he invited them into his own place of worship to carry them out. This was not mere tolerance: this was respect, if not acceptance. He met them with what he considered to be absolute truths, but not as a bigot.

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Later generations of Muslims took his practice very seriously: when he said that the rights of non-Muslims under the protection of the Islamic polity were sacrosanct, that he would be a witness for them on the Day of Judgement, Muslims listened. The millions of non-Muslims who are still very much a part of the Muslim world are testimony to that. The situation was not perfect, but non-Muslim historians record that it was the best model of its time.

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The third lesson was that difference did not mean that co-existence on a social and political level was impossible. The Christians nonetheless accepted the Prophet as their guarantor in the political realm, and for 14 centuries other Christian communities have accepted Muslim rulers as their guarantors, with their lives, property and religion safeguarded in exchange for a tax, similar to the tax Muslims paid to their temporal authorities.

The above encounter with the Christians of Najran was by no means an isolated event in the life of the Prophet which points to ongoing interfaith relations. An earlier treaty, the documentation of which is still in existence, with Christians of Sinai bore this practice out:

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“This is a message from Muhammad son of Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far: we are with them. Verily I, the servants, the helpers (people of Medina), and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by God! I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims’ houses. Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God’s covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate.”

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None of the above was a medieval call for syncretism, nor should it be understood to be a denial that Islam, a universal religion, did call for Muslims to be fully committed to their faith. Rather, this was placing into Muslim ethics the need to respect the religious other, by respectfully engaging this other.

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The Prophet is known to have claimed that he was not sent “except to perfect good manners”, and his display of respect and co-existence is a model that has become sorely lacking in many parts of the world. While some may have forgotten his example, his practice nonetheless established precedents that we would do well to heed today with renewed commitment.

Hisham al-Zoubeir is a researcher of classical Islamic thought. He holds a Ph.D. in the history of European Muslims, and writes on Islam-West relations. This article is part of a series on apostasy and proselytism distributed by the Common Ground News Service. (CGNews), 25 September 2007

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written by Chris