On religious pluralism
On religious pluralism
We refer to the article of Muhammad Ali titled Promoting
religious pluralism in The Jakarta Post on Dec. 5, 2002.
Muhammad Ali addressed his article exclusively to Muslims,
while the fact is that religious radicalism erupted in all
religions and faiths worldwide.
Talking about religious intolerance, a scholar like Ali
probably knows that Islam, throughout its history, has been
subject to so many stereotypes and misunderstandings by certain
people of other religions and faiths. I refer here to many honest
scholars in the West who wrote extensively about the history of
the crusaders and how some scholars in the West, after the
conquest of Jerusalem and the killing of some 40,000 inhabitants
of the city in two days, began to cultivate a highly distorted
portrait of Islam, introducing it as an inherently violent and
intolerant faith, a religion of the sword (Karen Armstrong, the
Post, June 21, 2002). See also Johan Gattung, the Post, Nov. 23,
2002.
Furthermore, Ali must have heard about those who went in their
chronic hatred of Islam into saying that Prophet Muhammad was a
"terrorist".
Having said that, we should not deny the fact that the
extremist views about Arabs and Muslims voiced in the West have
not been part of the mainstream. At the same time, some Arabs and
Muslims are also guilty of stereotyping.
Ali said that "In Indonesia, for example, Muslims should not
necessarily apply amputation in the penal law or the idea of
dhimmy, that non-Muslims are regarded as second-class citizens,
so that they have to pay tax and other laws specific to the
Arabian culture". This all simply untrue and deeply
irresponsible. Never in the history of Islam, nor in the
contemporary Arab world, have non-Muslim minorities -- in theory
and practice -- been regarded as second-class citizens.
Ali should know that "poll tax" or gizya has nothing to do
with Arabian culture. The meaning of the word is compensation
levied from those who do not accept Islam, but are willing to
live under the protection of Islam.
Ali failed to address the matter in its appropriate and
balanced perspective, when he focused only on one religion. His
criticism of Arabian culture had no objective foundation
whatsoever. Instead he should have emphasized the shared
responsibility of all religions and beliefs to prevent the abuse
of religion and to engage in a serious dialogue based on mutual
respect and understanding to find common ground of consent and to
build upon it. In order to do that, the first is to avoid
unhelpful stereotyping on either side.
EZZAT SAAD EL SAYED, Ambassador, Egyptian Embassy, Jakarta