'Muslims, Christians have same God'

Muhammad Nafik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Will Christians join Muslims in Heaven when they die? The question is hard to answer. But for some Indonesian Muslims, especially hard-liners, they will certainly say "no".

But that's not the case for many Muslim scholars, including Jalaluddin Rahmat of Indonesia and James W. Morris from the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at Britain's University of Exeter.

They say all religions are similar despite their distinctive rituals because they actually derive from the same God.

"I believe that all religions come from a single God as stipulated in the Koran," Jalaluddin, director of the Bandung- based Islamic Muthahhari Foundation, told a seminar titled Understanding Religions and Religious Understanding in Jakarta on Monday.

He and Morris, who spoke at the same forum, argued that God revealed Itself in many different religions, saying that many believed human beings of different races were created from the same soul.

Considering their similarities, the two scholars said the different beliefs should not have led to hostilities and conflicts among Muslims and Christians in Indonesia or other countries.

"The differences should not be destroyed, but appreciated by all religious followers," Morris said in the seminar, co- sponsored by the Sebangsa (One Nation) Forum and the British Council.

He said religion should not be blamed for communal fighting as each religion did not order or allow their followers to abuse or kill others.

It was political, social and economic factors as well as the struggle for power that usually incited clashes between religious followers across the globe, he added.

Jalaluddin echoed Morris' statement, saying a lot of the conflicts in Indonesia, including those in the provinces of Maluku and Central Sulawesi, were ignited by economic and social disparities as well as political factors.

Some 6,000 people have been killed in the past three years of sectarian fighting between Muslims and Christian in the country's eastern islands of Maluku. Another 2,000 have been killed in a similar conflict in the Central Sulawesi town of Poso during the past two years.

Leaders from both warring factions have signed separate peace deals to end the fighting in Maluku and Poso, but sporadic outbreaks of violence are still raging there.

To prevent Muslims and Christians from being involved in further fighting, Jalaluddin suggested more inter-religious dialog and studies be held so that they would be able to "internalize their understandings of religions" in their minds.

Also, Muslims and Christians "should not very much be pre- occupied by particularities" or religious symbols, such as an Islamic dress code and campaigns for an Islamic state, in practicing their religion, he said.

"We should not stop at that level. We should go further to achieve the second or third level so as to understand our religious practices more deeply," Jalaluddin said.

Trisno S. Sutanto, coordinator of the Dialog for Inter- Religious Society Program, said that in reality, most Indonesians followed the religion their parents had adhered to, prompting them to fail to understand their faith comprehensively.

"A religion only becomes a heritage, not a responsible choice," he told the seminar.