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Newsletter for November 2008
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Islam And Global Dialogue: Religious Pluralism And The Pursuit Of Peace
A Review by Isla Rosser-Owen, School of Oriental &
African Studies,
Events like “9/11”, the
In one of the opening chapters to this newly-released
book, Islam and Global Dialogue, Diana Eck argues that
pluralism is the most challenging “ism” for the world
today, more so than secularism, the success of which is
now being progressively questioned. And John Bowden’s
chapter presents how significantly inter-religious
dialogue is now being perceived, by quoting German
Professor Hans Küng’s prescription for world peace: “No
peace among the nations without peace among the
religions. No peace among the religions without dialogue
between the religions. No dialogue between the religions
without investigation of the foundation of the
religions.”
The
discourse on pluralism is particularly pertinent now
with regard to Islam and Muslims, and it was the
widespread misunderstandings about the Muslim world,
especially post-9/11, that had prompted Dr Boase to
compile this book, in his endeavour to promote an
“ecumenical jihad”. As Robert Crane notes in his
chapter, “From Clashing Civilisations to a Common
Vision”, “The 9/11 terrorist attack on the symbols of
The underlying assumption is that religions have been
involved, if only indirectly, in many of the conflicts
between peoples of the past and present and that
therefore by greater co-operation and mutual respect
between faith communities the potential for future
conflicts will be greatly reduced. Tony Bayfield
asserts, in his series of “indictments”, that Judaism,
Christianity and Islam are sibling religions acting out
“the worst features of sibling rivalry that even the
most dysfunctional family could possibly muster.”
Pluralism, then, is the solution (but perhaps not to the
whole problem).
The main obstacle, however, is how do we define
“pluralism”, and would all religious personalities
necessarily agree on the same definition? Even in this
collection of essays, we see many different approaches
and perspectives. For example, Diana Eck believes that
simply tolerating “plurality” is not good enough; that
“pluralism” implies a committed effort to understand and
co-exist with other faiths, races, cultures, and so on.
Fred Halliday suggests that peaceful co-existence can be
achieved through dialogue based on universal principles;
whereas Dr Jonathan Sacks disagrees with the
universalist approach, suggesting that it would lead to
a loss of identity among the individual religions and
that there is a “dignity of difference” that should be
respected; that the miracle of the created world is “not
the Platonic form of the leaf, it’s the 250,000
different kinds of leaf there are”.
Some of the contributors promote pluralism as an
acceptance of all religions as equal partners, or
“fellow pilgrims” as Marcus Baybrooke puts it, whereas
others like Muhammad Legenhausen qualify terms more
specifically suggesting that Muslims would accept a
“non-reductive” religious pluralism but are unlikely to
accept other forms. While some of the other Muslim
authors have argued that Islam has always had a
pluralistic tradition that is more equitable. But the
one definition most would probably accept, forgetting
the minutiae, is the "non-definition" of Frank Gelli,
where he writes that pluralism invites: “Conversation,
yes. Conversion, no.”
So even a brief scan of this book would suggest that
discussions on “pluralism” perhaps raise more questions
than they answer. Is there more than one path to
salvation? Does “our God” listen to the prayers of those
from other faiths? Who is “more right”, and whose
“right” to practice their religion supercedes that of
others? Therefore, how do we legislate for religious
pluralism? And, as Muhammad Legenhausen asks, is there a
way for us to “measure relative amounts of truth”?
Like it or not, with 45% of the world's Muslim
population living as minorities in non-Muslim countries,
these are questions that will become increasingly
important, and that both Muslim and non-Muslim alike are
going to have to deal with. Many of us now face a
“plurality” of races, cultures, languages, as well as
religions, in our everyday lives, and increasingly
within our own families, not to mention the different
perspectives found within those religions and
traditions. How we seek to define our relation-ships
with each other will have a fundamental impact on the
shaping of our future societies. And so we ask more
questions: Is simple co-existence enough? Will some form
of mutual accommodation grow up organically if, to quote
Frank Gelli, we simply accept the "brute fact" of the
existence of other faiths? Or, do we need to start
making more of a concerted effort to understand each
other and to nurture reciprocal respect, particularly in
view of recent events? And how do we go about achieving
that without sacrificing the integrity of our respective
traditions? Unfortunately, Islam and Global Dialogue does not give us an A-Z of solutions that we can all agree with. As Norman Solomon points out in his essay, it is easy to identify shared values with other faiths and to make some sort of "theological space" for them-allowing them "a positive role in the divine plan"-but it is far harder to move from that towards creating "a dialogue of equals".
However, this is perhaps where Richard Dawkins has done
us all a favour by placing all religions, collectively,
in the ring line. Now it seems almost inevitable that
religious communities will have to work together at some
level to tackle shared concerns, such as the growing
trends in society and academia that are actively
anti-religious, or those “arising from the confrontation
with modernity” (Norman Solomon). Solomon identifies
this in his suggested approaches to dialogue, by noting,
“When the problems are seen as shared, we can explore
them together, drawing critically on the resources of
all our traditions”. Perhaps, therefore, identifying the
problems or shared concerns is a starting point, and
provides an arena for religions to come together in a
way that need not be defined by conflict.
Although this collection of essays on religious
pluralism may not provide all the answers, it does
consider all of the questions. It helps to define,
through a “star-studded cast”, a framework for the
debate, and provides various models and ideas over how
solutions can be achieved. In fact, the simple act of
bringing together scholars and commentators from such
different perspectives and traditions was a brave task
and an accomplishment in itself.
While, interestingly, the individual authors do not
always themselves display the requisite qualities of
pluralism-or perhaps they simply differ on its
definition-they nevertheless succeed as a group in
taking us through a pluralistic consideration of various
pertinent issues, including Samuel Huntington's
much-quoted “clash of civilisations”; the apparent rise
of religious fundamentalisms; terrorism and 9/11come up
again and again, largely as the focal point for the
discussions; identity and divisions within faith
communities, with an obvious focus on the Muslim world;
and widely misunderstood terms such as “jihad” and “hiraba”
are also clarified. So, the writers of Islam and Global Dialogue reflect upon the causes, manifestations and consequences of conflicts involving religious personalities or groups, they make an attempt to investigate the potential obstacles to pluralism and its validity, but also consider how individual religions can approach inter-religious dialogue in order to avoid such conflicts in the future, and to stop Huntington's theory from becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The limitations of the book are perhaps in the fact
that, for the most part, only the three main
monotheistic traditions were included, and it would be
interesting to see whether any alternative problems-or
indeed solutions-may have arisen by widening the scope
of the discussions to, for example, those of a
polytheistic tradition. That no clear prescriptions are
given, too, is disappointing, but probably also
inevitable. It is also interesting to see the different
approaches and lack of clarity of position shown by
authors coming from the same religious background, for
example in considering certain Quranic injunctions that
may appear to be anti-pluralistic in nature (e.g.
“Anyone who seeks a faith other than Islam, it will not
be accepted from him” Qur'an 3:85).
But the Qur'an also says, “Wherever you turn, there is
the face of God.” (2:115). And, given that, as HRH
Prince Hassan bin Talal wrote in his preface, “our
greatest certainty now is that we face unpredictable
times”, it seems that we increasingly need to start
recognising the face of God within each other, at least
at some level. Even if we do not accept that it is
religions that cause conflicts, they remain at least a
potential cause, particularly in some of their modern
more radical manifestations. Regardless of whether we
believe our own paths to be “more right” or “more true”,
that need not necessarily inhibit progress at a
practical level of achieving common goals.
However, even if we can overcome this failure to view
each other on an equal footing, the questions remain
over how and at what level inter-religious dialogue can
have an effect. But, perhaps what Islam and Global
Dialogue illustrates best to us is that there is now a
willingness among religious personalities to come
together and to try the route of dialogue, rather than
the more tried and tested route of conflict, and to see
where it takes us.
Edited by Roger Boase Foreword by HRH Prince
Hassan bin Talal [Ashgate Publishing, 330pp., 2005]
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