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