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(The need for dialog between religions)
by Fethullah Gulen
The goal of dialogue among world religions is the very nature of religion
demands this dialogue. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and even Hinduism
and other world religions, accept the same source for themselves, and,
including Buddhism, pursue the same goal. Regardless of how their adherents
implement their faith in their daily lives, such generally accepted values
as love, respect, tolerance, forgiveness, mercy, human rights, peace,
brotherhood, and freedom are all values exalted by religion. Most of these
values are accorded the highest precedence in the messages brought by Moses,
Jesus, and Muhammad, upon them be peace, as well as in the messages of
Buddha and even Zarathustra, Lao-Tzu, Conficius, and the Hindu prophets.
Muslims accept all Prophets and Books sent to different peoples throughout
history, and regard belief in them as an essential principle of being
Muslim. A Muslim is a true follower of Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, and all
other Prophets, upon them be peace. Not believing in one Prophet or Book
means that one is not a Muslim. Thus we acknowledge the oneness and basic
unity of religion, which is a symphony of God’s blessings and mercy, and the
universality of belief in religion. So, religion is a system of belief that
embraces all races and all beliefs, a road that brings everyone together in
brotherhood.
Muslims have a Prophetic Tradition almost unanimously recorded in the Hadith
literature that Jesus will return when the end of the world is near. We do
not know whether he will actually reappear physically, but what we
understand is that near the end of time, values like love, peace,
brotherhood, forgiveness, altruism, mercy, and spiritual purification will
have precedence, as they did during Jesus’ ministry.
There are many common points for dialogue among Muslims, Christians, and
Jews who take their religion seriously. As pointed out by Michael Wyschogrod,
an American professor of philosophy, there are just as many theoretical or
creedal reasons for Muslims and Jews drawing closer to one another as there
are for Jews and Christians coming together. Furthermore, practically and
historically, the Muslim world has a good record of dealing with the Jews:
there has been almost no discrimination, and there has been no Holocaust,
denial of basic human rights, or genocide. On the contrary, Jews have always
been welcomed in times of trouble, as when the Ottoman State embraced them
after their expulsion from Spain.
We believe that interfaith dialogue is a must today, and that the first step
in establishing it is forgetting the past, ignoring polemical arguments, and
giving precedence to common points, which far outnumber polemical ones.
Related Links to the Author, Fethullah Gulen:
Advocate of Dialogue: (A Biography of Fethullah Gulen by Ali Unal and ALphonso Williams)
Terror From an Islamic Prospect
Fethullah Gulen's Other Recent Articles
Selections From Fethullah Gulen's Writings, Speeches and Interviews on Tolerance