Interfaith DialogueInviting non-Muslims to Islam is a matter that Allah has made
obligatory on the Muslims. The Muslims have been doing this for
fourteen centuries, and continue call others to Islam whether they
are from the People of the Book or not. Allah said:
"Invite (O Muhammad) to the Way of your Lord with Hikma
(clear proof) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better."
[Al-Nahl: 125]
And he said in his letter to Heraclius, the Roman Emperor:
“Verily,I invite you with the call of Islam. Embrace Islam and you shall be
safe and Allah will grant you the reward twice. If you turn away
then upon you will bear the sin of the people under your rule.”
Thus, our call to the non-Muslims is an invitation to have conviction
in Islam and to abandon Kufr.
As for the idea of interfaith dialogue that is being circulated nowadays,
it is a foreign, evil and Western idea that has no basis in Islam. This is
because it calls for mutual relationships between different religions. It
calls for a new fabricated religion which the Kuffar want the Muslims to
embrace instead of Islam, because the advocates and followers of this
idea are the Kuffar themselves.
Internationally, this idea started in 1932 when France sent
representatives to confer with the scholars of al-Azhar University about
the idea of uniting the three religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
This was then followed by the Paris Conference of 1933 attended by
orientalists and missionaries from every university in France, England,
Switzerland, America, Italy, Poland, Spain, Turkey and others. The
Conference of world religions in 1936 was the last conference of
religions before the Second World War, which distracted the Europeans
from these conferences.
In 1964 Pope Paolo VI sent a letter in which he called for dialogue
between the religions. The Vatican then published a book in 1969 with
the title: 'Guide to dialogue between the Muslims and Christians.'
During the 1970’s and 1980’s more than thirteen interfaith and
intercultural meetings and conferences were held, the most prominent of
which was the Second World Conference of Religion and Peace held in
Belgium attended by 400 delegates from various world religions. Another
conference was held in Cordoba in Spain attended by Muslim and
Christian representatives from 23 countries. These two conferences were
held in 1974 followed by the Christian-Muslim assembly in Qurtaj, Tunis
in 1979.
It was in the 1990s that those calling for interfaith dialogue became
most active. Thus they held the Arab-European Conference in 1993 in
Jordan, followed in 1994 by the Khartoum Conference for interfaith
dialogue. In 1995 two dialogue conferences were held, one in Stockholm
and the other in Amman, both of which were followed by the
Conference "Islam and Europe" at the University of Ahl al-Bayt in
Jordan in 1996.
One of the most significant justifications presented by delegates at
the interfaith conferences is standing firm in the face of the disbelief and
atheism represented by the Soviet Union before its collapse.
Communism was depicted as a danger to the divine religions, which
would threaten their cultural achievements. Then they pretended to weep
for humanity and to fight for the defence of all believers in the world.
They sought to define truth in relative terms, emphasising that no
individual and no religion could claim sole ownership of the truth, but
it should be subject to the democratic process where the majority
opinion is closest to the truth.
The following were the most important recommendations of the
conferences held in the name of interfaith and intercultural dialogue
and between Islam and Europe:
1. Devising and adopting new meanings and provisions for words
such as disbelief, atheism, polytheism, belief, Islam, moderation,
extremism and fundamentalism to ensure that these words would not
become factors of division between people of different religions.
2. Identifying shared elements in the three religions, which would
include creed, morals and culture, and to place emphasis on positive cooperation
between the religions and cultures, since all the people of the
Book were accepted as believers, and worshippers of Allah .
3. The formation of a joint document on human rights to permit
peace and co-existence between the followers of different religions. This
would be achieved by eliminating the feeling of barriers of blood
between the religions and by removing the concept of the cultures of
different peoples and policies of different states.
4. A comprehensive review of the history and education curricula,
so that they become free of any incitement or hatred. Religious
education would be considered part of basic humanitarian studies that
aim to create personalities open to human cultures and with mutual
understanding of others. Therefore, the study of certain beliefs and
worships had to be disqualified.
5. Raising interest in studying the following subjects and
formulating unified concepts for them: justice, peace, women rights,
human rights, democracy, work morals, pluralism, freedom, world peace,
peaceful co-existence, cultural openness, civil society etc.
After the failure of the Western Kuffar in distancing the Muslims from
their Aqeedah via the missionaries, orientalists, cultural works, the media,
intellectual and political deception, they resorted to government
authorities in their countries and in the countries of their agents. They
began to hold conferences and seminars, formed joint work teams and
established centres of study in their countries and in the Muslim lands,
such as the Oxford Centre for Islamic studies, the Centre for Middle
Eastern Studies at Durham University, the American college of the Holy
Cross, the Muslim League, the Royal Academy for the study of Islamic
Culture, the University of Ahl al-Bayt and the World Council of
Churches etc.
They deliberately used terminologies and pretentious general
expressions with undefined meanings to create deception and delusion.
For example, terms such as renovation, openness to the world, human
civilisation, universal sciences, the need for peaceful co-existence,
renunciation of partisanship and extremism, globalisation etc., were all
examples of this.
They mixed the concepts of science and culture, and the concepts of
Hadharah (civilisation) and Madaniyya (material progression) to justify
attacking those who hold to their specific way of life. They claimed that
such people opposed science and technology and the civilisation arising
from them, and accused them of being reactionary and backward, even
though this is not the case in Islam. Islam opens its gates to science and
to the technology that is derived from this science, but closes them in the
face of any Thaqafa (culture) or Madaniyya from other than the Thaqafa
and Hadharah of Islam. This is because these thoughts and concepts are
related to the behaviour of the human being, which has to be controlled
by the Islamic concepts about life.
They painted certain capitalist thoughts in glowing tones to the
Muslims and promoted them by claiming that they do not contradict
Islam to such an extent that some Muslims considered them as part of
Islam, such as democracy, freedom, pluralism, socialism and others. On
the other hand, they denounced certain Islamic thoughts and described
them as uncivilised and out of date, such as Jihad, the Hudood, polygyny
and other Shara’i rules.
They subjected the study of the Islamic texts to the Capitalist way of
thinking, which makes the reality the source of the rule and not the
subject of the thought. It makes benefit the criterion in adopting or
leaving the rule rather than the Halal and the Haram. This incited some
Muslims to invent certain principles, which did not rely on the Shara’i
texts to understand Islam. This is like the Fiqh of reality, the Fiqh of
balances, necessity permits the prohibited things and others. This
resulted in the dilution of certain rules of Islam and non-differentiation
of the foreign rule from the original rule, and even between what
constitutes Kufr and what constitutes Islam. For example, Riba (usury)
has become acceptable and martyrdom is now portrayed as suicide.
The non-muslims who initiated this dialogue are now generalising and
widening its scope. It will no longer remain restricted to the few who
participate in conferences and seminars. Rather it will include all sections
of society from men, women, the educated and labourers. This is done
via the universities, institutes of study, parties and associations. It is, as
some conference delegates have described, joining the western Hadharah
in economics, social relations, politics, education etc. Thus, Capitalism -
according to their claim - is humanity, rationalism, freedom and
democracy. It is the new and successful Hadharah. As for Islam, it is seen
as blind faith, despotism and heritage and depicted as the sovereignty of
religion, slavery and polygyny. It is thus an uncivilised religion!
One of the styles used to blind the Muslims to the real objective of
these conferences is to invite those belonging to certain beliefs such as
Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism to attend alongside the Muslims,
Christians and Jews. This happened at the World Conference for Religion
and Peace in Japan and in a seminar in Beirut in 1970, to ensure that
Muslims would not suspect they were the only targets of the dialogue.
How could so-called Muslim scholars allow Islam to be placed on an
equal stage with Buddhism and other religions?!
The West, which calls for dialogue with the Muslims and heads
conferences of dialogue, views Islam as the enemy. This viewpoint is
the motive for such dialogue and governs and directs this dialogue. For
example, the encyclopaedia of French culture, which is a renowned point
of reference, states that the Messenger Muhammad is: 'a killer, the
Antichrist, kidnaps women and the greatest enemy to the human mind.'
Likewise most of the textbooks in Western Europe describe the
Messenger Muhammad , Islam and the Muslims with the most ugliest
of descriptions. Recently, the following has been mentioned in the book
'The End of History' written by the American thinker Fukuyama: “The
Capitalist system is the eternal salvation for man on earth. Islam, despite
its weakness and disintegration, threatens this new victorious way of life
(i.e. capitalism).” The former General Secretary of NATO, Javier Solana,
said: 'Fundamentalist Islam is the danger which threatens the geopolitics
of the future.' The orientalist Barnard Lewis said about Islam and
Capitalism: 'They are contradictory. There is no scope for dialogue.' And
Samuel Huntington, professor of political science at Harvard University
and the Director of the Institute of Strategic Studies said: “The clash
between civilisations (Hadharah) will dominate foreign policy. The
dividing lines between the civilisations (Hadharah) will be the battle lines
in the future.” Then he says: “Religion vehemently distinguishes itself
and it is clear to the people. A person can be half French and half
Arab...but it is difficult for a man to be half Catholic and half Muslim...”
Where is the dialogue they call us for from t h i s enmity?
When these statements are compared with the hostile actions which
have come from the West against Islam and the Muslims, such as the
Crusades, the extermination of Muslims in Spain, the destruction of the
Khilafah State and afterwards the establishment of the Jewish state in
Palestine, and the portrayal of Islam and the Islamic movements as
terrorist and extremist. When we compare these statements, we realise
the meaning and the aims of the dialogue that the Kafir West is
conducting with the Muslims.
The primary aim that the capitalists are working to achieve from the
dialogue between religions and Hadharah is to prevent the return of
Islam to life's affairs as a comprehensive system. This is because it
threatens the survival of their ideology and Hadharah and will destroy
their interests and influence.
As for other partial aims that serve their primary aim, these are various.
Thus the West aims to paint the world according to the colour of the
Capitalist civilisation, especially in the Muslim lands, in order to replace
the Islamic Hadharah. This will make it easy for them to remove the
Islamic Thaqafa (culture) from the minds of the people. They aim to
achieve that by shaking the confidence of Muslims in the Islamic Thaqafa
(culture) and in its sources and principles. They aim to neutralise Islam
in the clash of civilisations by stripping it of its most important
characteristics which distinguish it from other religions, namely the
political aspect with which the Khilafah would be established to look
after the affairs of the people according to the rules of Islam and carry
it to the whole of mankind.
The Capitalists also aim to reshape the personality of the Muslim a new
such that he finds no shame in leaving the duty and doing the
prohibited . Then they aim to corrupt the Islamic desires and
values and destroy in the Muslim the zeal for Islam such that he no
longer hates Kufr and the Kafireen, and he no longer enjoins good and
forbids evil. With this they will remove the cultural immunity of the
Islamic Ummah with which she resisted all external elements, and will
remove the emotional and intellectual barriers that threatened the
presence of Capitalist civilisation in Muslim lands. Thus, preserving their
influence and interests becomes easier and they guarantee their survival
and continuance.
The intention behind this dialogue, which the non-muslimsand their agent
rulers guard in the Muslim countries with an entourage of scholars and
thinkers, is to create a new religion for the Muslims. It is based upon the
creed of separating religion from life, and in which man is the Legislator
instead of Allah , the Creator of mankind. They are as Allah
describes them:
"And they will never cease fighting you until they turn you back from your Deen."
[Al-Baqarah: 217]
And He said regarding the people of Lut (peace be upon him):
"But We found not there any household of those who submitted (muslimeen)
except one (i.e. of Lut and his two daughters)."
[Az-Zariyat: 36]
And on the tongue of Musa (peace be upon him):
"Then in Him put your trust if you are those who have submitted (to Allah's will
[Muslimeen])."
[Yunus: 84]
And on the tongue of the Hawariyyoon, the followers of 'Isa (peace
be upon him):
"We believe in Allah, and bear witness that we are those who have submitted
(muslimoon)."
[Al-Imran: 52]
So the word 'Muslimoon' found in the Ayats means 'those who have
submitted' (Munqaadoon). It does not mean that they professed one Deen,
which is Islam as revealed to Muhammad saw. Islam was not known to
them and they were not addressed with it. Rather, each people had a
particular Messenger who called them to a specific Shari'ah. Allah
said:
"To each (Ummah) among you, We have prescribed a law (Shari'ah) and a clear
way (Minhaaj)."
[Al-Ma'ida: 48]
After the revelation (Wahy) came down to Muhammad , the
revelation took up certain Arabic words and transferred them from their
conventional linguistic meanings to Shara’i meanings. The Shari'ah texts
from the Qur'an and Sunnah have clarified this. One of these transferred
expressions is the word 'Islam' which linguistically used to mean
'submission' (Inqiyaad), and became a Shara’i meaning - the Deen revealed
by Allah to His Messenger Muhammad . Allah said, addressing
the whole of mankind until the Day of Judgement:
"I have chosen for you Islam as your Deen."
[Al-Ma'ida: 3]
And Allah said:
"And whosoever seeks a Deen other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him."
[Al-Imran: 85]
And the Messenger of Allah saw said:
“Islam has been built on five.”
Other religions are not based on these five.
After the divine transference of the meaning of the word 'Islam', the
words derived from it, such as the verb and active participle (Aslama
and Muslim), if used without a Qareena (context), indicate the Shara’i
meaning only. If the conventional linguistic meaning is intended this
would then require a Qareena to change it from the Shara’i meaning.
Allah for example says:
"Ibraheem was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but he was one who truly submitted
(Musliman) (to Allah's will)."
[Al-Imran: 67]
This does not mean that Ibraheem (peace be upon him) was on the
Deen that Allah revealed to Muhammad . Rather it means that
Ibraheem (peace be upon him) had submitted to Allah regarding that
which Allah revealed to him, unlike the Jews and Christians who
fabricated the Deen of their Prophets.
As for the statement that Muhammad , 'Isa and Musa (peace be upon
them) were on the Deen of Ibraheem (peace be upon him), it means that
they believed in the same ‘Aqeedah, which is the foundation of every
Deen revealed from Allah .
This is what is meant from His saying:
"He (Allah) has ordained for you the same Deen which He ordained for Nuh, and
that which We have inspired to you (O Muhammad), and that which We ordained
for Ibraheem, Musa and 'Isa saying you should establish the Deen and do not become
divided over it."
[Ash-Shura: 13]
So the word 'Deen' in the Ayah means the foundation of the Deen,
which is the ‘Aqeedah. Allah specified this when He said:
"To each (Ummah) among you, We have prescribed a law (Shari'ah) and a clear
way (Minhaaj)."
[Al-Ma'ida: 48]
(2) The Shar’i issue
Allah sent Muhammad saw was the seal of the Prophets and the
Messengers to the whole of mankind. He ordered them to leave
whatever religion they were following, whether divine or not, and called
on them to embrace Islam as a Deen. Whoever responded to the call
became a Muslim and whoever rejected committed Kufr. Allah said:
"And say to those who were given the Book (the Jews and Christians) and to
those who are illiterates (Arab pagans): 'Do you (also) submit yourselves (to Allah
in Islam)?' If they do, they are rightly guided; but if they turn away, your duty is
only to convey the Message; and Allah is All-Seer of (His) slaves."
[Al-Imran: 20]
And He said:
"Those who disbelieve from among the people of the Book (Jews and Christians)
and among the Mushrikeen (polytheists), were not going to leave (their disbelief)
until there came to them clear evidence, a Messenger (Muhammad) from Allah."
[Al-Baiyinah:1-2]
They are not separated from the Kufr except by their embracing of
Islam. The Messenger of Allah said: “By the one in whose Hand
lies Muhammad's soul! No one from this Ummah, whether Jew or
Christian, who hears about me and then dies without believing in
what I have been sent with, except that he will be from the
inhabitants of the Fire.” So the people are all called to gain conviction
in Islam, and whoever does not profess Islam after the matter has been
proven to him, then he is definitely a Kafir. After Muhammad was
charged with prophethood, if the Jews and Christians continued to hold
to their religion, they are considered Kafir according to the Quranic text.
It is forbidden to describe them as Muslims, and whosoever believes
that they or others are Muslims, he is a Kafir. This is because with this
belief of his he has rejected clear Shara’i texts that are definite in
meaning and authenticity. If they die on this belief then they will be
from among the inhabitants of the Fire.
(3) The issue concerning the sons of Ibraheem (Peace be
upon them)
This is a call to the bond of nationalism. It is a bond arising from the
survival instinct and is shallow and emotional in nature. It is not suitable
for man because it cannot bind one human being with another if they
differ in lineage.
The bond of the sons of Ibraheem (peace be upon him) has been
negated by time. It does not exist today because the descendants of
Ibraheem (peace be upon him) and his offspring have mixed with other
peoples through marriage, social intercourse, migration and wars.
Todayit is impossible to separate them from other peoples. Since the followers
of the three religions can be found among all peoples and tribes of the
world, they have mixed on the basis of religion and not on the basis of
ethnicity. Therefore, applying the claim regarding the sons of Ibraheem
(peace be upon him) on the Muslims, Jews and Christians and on those
who live around al-Masjid al-Aqsa or any others is a pointless exercise
and is incorrect. The intention is to fight Islam, justify the peace process
and normalise relations with the Jewish entity of Israel that exists on the
usurped land of the Muslims; all of this to give legitimacy to the terrible
crimes committed by the treacherous rulers of the Islamic lands under
the orders of their masters, the Kuffar of the West.
The family or nationalist bond is like the bond of the sons of
Ibraheem (peace be upon him). It is rejected by the Shari'’ah as a basis to
organise the relationships of the people. Allah said:
"Say: If your fathers, your sons, your brothers, your wives, your kindred, the
wealth that you have gained, the commerce in which you fear decline, and the dwellings
in which you delight...are dearer to you than Allah and His Messenger, and striving
hard and fighting in His Path, then wait until Allah brings about His Decision
(torment). And Allah guides not the people who are Fasiqoon (disobedient)."
[At-Tauba: 24]
Thus, the order of Allah is above every nationalistic, family or benefit
bond. Allah clarified the shallowness of this bond to the previous
Messengers. He said:
“And Nuh called upon his Lord and said: 'O my Lord! Verily, my son is of my
family! And certainly your promise is true, and You are the most just of the judges'.
And He said: 'O Nuh! Surely, he is not of your family, indeed his work is
unrighteous.’”
[Hud: 45-46]
And He said about Ibraheem:
"He said to him: ‘Verily, I am going to make you a leader of mankind',
(Ibraheem) said: ‘And of my offspring (to make leaders).’ (Allah) said: ‘My covenant
includes not the Zalimeen (wrongdoers).’”
[Al-Baqarah: 124]
Thus, the son of Nuh (peace be upon him) according to the Shara’i
criterion is not from his family, because he did not believe in what Allah
revealed to his father. And the Zalimeen (wrongdoers) from the
offspring of Ibraheem (peace be upon him) are exempt from the
covenant of leadership made by Allah since they did not follow what
Allah revealed to their father Ibraheem (peace be upon him). So the
call to the sons of Ibraheem (peace be upon him) today is Jahil (ignorant)
and a politically motivated call. It is forbidden to call for it and invite
people to it. This is because the intention is to fight Islam, divert the
Muslims from their Deen, justify the treacherous peace treaty with the
Jews and concede to them what they usurped from the blessed land of
Palestine, so that relations with them may be normalised and Israel can
be accepted as a state in the Middle East.
