A sage once gave his own description of religion with the following words : “The greatest hope in the worst state of suffering and the unsatisfied in the highest Lust”. Obviously religion is necessary in the organization of every society as it gives us the fundamentals of ethics and can stir us with hope no matter what we are experiencing.
There are so many religions. Some religions however are mainly linked to specific cultures and societies. Religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism as well as Shinto for instance are linked to a specific culture where they originated and evolved. The majority of those who practise Hinduism are either located in India and its neighborhoods or are from the region where the religion originated and its whereabouts. Shinto is mainly practiced by Japanese. This is slightly also the case with Judaism and is mainly the case with many tribal religions around the world. But the world’s major monotheistic religions such as Christianity and Islam have transcend boundaries and spread all over the world.
As a matter of fact interrelligious Dialogue has a long tradition . However, many conflicts have originated from the inability of people of various religions to understand each other. It is therefore necessary than ever to help people with different religions understand each other.
Many people understand the world from the point of view of a faith they have been brought up with or from a conviction that they have made from a religious ideology. Due to the richness of religious scriptures such as the Veda, the Bible and the Quran , and due to the flexibility of linguistic interpretation, religions have posed a great problem to a lot of communities. Although the evolvement of western civilization from the enlightenment period to the so called secular modern democratic societies have brought a foundation for the living together of various cultures and religions, the past decades have witnessed a lot of conflicts fueled by opposing religious ideologies.
One of the main reasons is that every religion gives conviction of the truthfulness of its own message. The Jews are convinced that their religion is the right ways and that its message is the truth. Christians are also convinced of their religions without any doubt. And the Muslim can quote from many passages in the Quran that Islam is the only right way.
Notwithstanding the imperialistic spreading of some of the word major religions, the predominance of monotheistic faith was based on the argument that God is one and against any form of worship that is address to idols. Even-though a few pagan culture resisted , a lot of civilization were conquered in the past centuries and some if not the majority of the greatest empires in history used religion in the organization of the society. Faith has been transmitted through education but even in the so-called free societies, some people reflect and choose a religion on their own after they have become adult. Faith has also been reasoned by scholars and sages and at least a considerable number of them accepts some of the arguments in religious scriptures but it has never been easy to unite people with different religious doctrine. Whereas it is acknowledgeable that even within the same religions there is always a division, we are focusing merely of the dialogue between major different faiths.
The common point of revealed religions is Monotheism, Thus the basic doctrine of Islam Tawhid, the unity of God . Islam recognizes the basic teachings of Judaism and Christianity as well as their prophets. And unlike Judaism, Islam recognized Jesus, the son of Mary as one of the honoured messengers of God in this world and the world to come. In this case Islam is more tolerant than other religions .
Believers no matter what is their religion should seek to please God and not other people.
The principle of Tawhid, the unity of God, is a foundation for interreligious Dialogue. Referring to the oneness of the creator of everything and all, is indirectly assuming that all other religions are to be accepted, and that diversity is a test to see who will evolved in the right way.
The mistake of some Christian doctrine, which referring to the prophet Jesus, son of Mary as God himself, lays the foundation of a more exclusive condition of salvation. As a matter of fact, unlike Islam that accepts the revelations send to Moses(Judaism) to Jesus(pbuh)(Christianity), the main Christian sects disagree with the possibility of attaining salvation through the creator himself and herewith disagree with the fundamental teachings of Islam. Scriptures are helpful here, but the problem mentioned above, the richness of scriptural interpretation and the flexibility of semantics, makes it possible to sustain on the one hand that Jesus is divine, and on the other hand that he is not. This is where interreligious dialogue between Muslim and Christians has failed. When you read the Bible the is no clear claim of divinity from Jesus himself but there are verses that will lead to misinterpret ion : ”I and the Father are one.”(John 10:30)
” No matter how you understand this it will not mean that Jesus is his father at the same time as 2 different entities cannot be the same. Is it not the same Jesus who said “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”(Matthew 27:46) clearly implying that He is separated from the Father?
Those considering Jesus as God will hang on the verses of John and will point out even more verses such as
“Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. “(John 8:58)
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”( John 1:1-2)
whereas those arguing that Jesus in not God will give the statement in the Gospel of Matthew among others:
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One.” Deuteronomy 6:4
Fortunately for our purpose of interreligious dialogue , there is even more indication in the Gospels that the God of Jesus(pbuh) is the God of Moses and Muhammad, the one God creator of heaven and earth and everything that exists. And one of the basic doctrine of Christianity that is rejected by Jews and Muslims altogether in the condition for salvation:
“For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus(, who gave himself and ransom for all people” (1 Timothy 2:5-6)
Alike some philosophical doctrine, mere religious people seems to act brainwashed and see only the arguments for their theory. As Einstein once said, your Theory will determine what you can observe. The is no evidence of Christians being more righteous than some irreligious people or pagans or Muslims. If Jesus had really died for their sins, they would have been pure or at least better in general than non-Christians in humanity. But just have a look at what is happening with all the accusations against catholic priests in the recent years till today, and observe the life of a Christians in morality and compare. Diversity is made for comparison, and the core principle of religion is spiritual and ethical dominance and not mere material.
Indeed Muslims are not perfect but Islamic doctrine rests on solid scriptures that we can face with rational thinking. The hindrance of general acceptance of other monotheistic religions in Islam, rests on the claim of Islamic doctrine, that the only religion by God is Islam and that no other religion will be accepted by the creator. “Islam is the only religion acceptable to God, Those given the Book began to disagree amongst themselves out of sheer rebelliousness after knowledge had come to them “. Those who understand this can explain from the origin of the Arabic texts that Islam here means submission to God only, and that submission to nay other entity is not accepted. This same idea is expressed in the Bible where God claim to be jealous. Islam has been judged as being imperialistic because of the misunderstanding of this claim, however, in the story of the religion, the prophet tolerated the living together with non-muslims.
Interreligious dialogue between Jews and Christian has always failed for the same reason,, that is to say, because Jesus, considered divine by some Christians, is not recognised by the Jews as the only source of salvation. The principle of amendment of law might be the solution here. Jesus was send not to cancel the teachings of Moses but to re-guide the believers after they went astray of the law of God.
To conclude, it its obvious, that the 3 main monotheistic religions were superposed in time and space. They originated merely in the same region, and one after another as a prove of their sharing something in common. Unfortunately in their evolvement they were used by men to organised societies with emphasis on different priorities and became involved in conflicts. If their common enemies were pagans and statue worshippers, on the other hand they have also failed to unite on a conceptual mainframe. We have seen that this is due to the doctrinal foundations on the concept of God and the conditions for salvation. On the one hand Christians and Messianic Jews are convinced that without accepting that Jesus died for your sins you cannot be saved, on the other hand Muslim are convinced that attributing divinity to Jesus is a major sin. “Indeed, those who say, God is the Messiah, son of Mary,” have fallen into disbelief. Say, ˹O Prophet,˺ “Who has the power to prevent God if He chose to destroy the Messiah, son of Mary, his mother, and everyone in the world all together?”(quran 5:17). But it its possible to unite beyond all these differences . Tawhid, the unicity of God is the key for unity and from this general principle that God is only one and created everything, we must sit together and compete in who is better from the ethical point of view. The organisation of Secular societies were the freedom of choice of region is guaranteed has to take into consideration the common points in the various doctrines and guarantee continuous challenged in performing good deeds ”And cooperate in righteousness and piety, but do not cooperate in sin and aggression. “ (quran 5:2) c
