In a public seminar entitled “The Impact of Globalisation on Contemporary Muslim Societies” organized by the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies (IAIS) Malaysia, the Royal Consort of the Sultan of the southern Malaysian state of Johor HRH Raja Zarith Sofiah binti Almarhum Sultan Idris Shah II, was invited to deliver this Royal Address.
"Building Bridges Between Islam & the West"
by Raja Zarith Idris.
INTRODUCTION:
BISMILLAHIR RAHMANIR RAHIM.
ASSALAMU ALAIKUM WARAHMATULLAHI WABARAKAATUH.
ALHAMDULILLAHI RABBIL AALAMIN. WASOOLATU WASSALAMU ALAA SAIDINA MUHAMMADIN WA ALA AALIHI WASOHBIHI AJMAAIN.
Your Excellencies, Ladies & Gentlemen,
Good Morning,
Thank you very much for being a part of this forum today.
There is a great need now, more than ever, to build bridges between Muslim people and the West because there is just too much mistrust, enmity and paranoia which exist in our world today. And more than ever, Islam and Muslims have become part of constant news items. Thousands of articles appear in magazines about Islam, and just as many, if not more, books have been written for and against Islam.
On 27 October, 1993, HRH Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, gave a lecture at the Sheldonian Theatre, University of Oxford, entitled "Islam and the West". Part of what he said includes the following :
"If there is much misunderstanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is also much ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilization owe to the Islamic world...The medieval Islamic world, from central Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of learning flourished. But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society, and system of belief, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own history."
If, in 1993, Islam had already been seen as "the enemy of the West", then imagine how Islam was perceived after the events of 11 September, 2001, events that are etched into the minds of everyone around the world, regardless of what race or religion they may be.
In the wake of what happened in New York City, the Pentagon and Washington DC, many hundreds of thousands of writers, journalists, political analysts, social commentators, academicians, from both Muslims and non-Muslims, from East or West, have tried to describe and analyze that day's events.
One writer, Akbar Ahmed, wrote that in the course of doing research for one of his latest books:
"...each and every discussion led directly or indirectly to events that took place far away in America...The United States and the Muslim world had become irreversibly connected in an adversarial relationship, and henceforth every action taken by one side would elicit a reaction from the other. September 11 changed and challenged both worlds in unexpected ways."
- "Journey Into Islam; The Crisis of Globalization" by Akbar Ahmed, 2007.
The reason I believe in building bridges of mutual understanding between Muslims and the non-Muslim people of the West is because most people do not know the impact that 9/11 had on us as Muslims. It is not as if we remained unaffected.
I would like to share with you my own experiences :
My family was in Johor Bahru for the school break. I had gone to the hotel to see them in the evening and had just arrived home and was watching television with my husband when our daughter rushed into our room and said, "Watch CNN! Watch CNN!"
So we switched channels. And there was that unbelievable footage of one of the towers of the World Trade Centre in New York with plumes of black smoke drifting upwards from its middle floors.
And of course we all remember what we saw next: the image of the second plane flying straight into the second tower.
I remember all of us watching the footages over and over again, as we stayed staring at our television screen for the next 2 hours or more.
For almost the whole of the next day and night, The next evening, the televisions in all my family's rooms at the hotel were switched on to one or another news channels. I remember very vividly, until today, of sitting and watching television with my mother, as an American woman described how her son had phoned her from one of the two planes and had said to her that he wanted her to know he loved her. We were both badly affected by what she had said and by her tear-stained face. During those few minutes of seeing a mother mourn for her son, thousands of miles away from us, I know that my mother did not think, "Oh well, she's not a Muslim like us" and neither did I. At that moment, we were just three women who knew what being a mother meant.
When I went to the hotel again the following day - we had planned to take all our children to Singapore - I saw police cars and policemen with sniffer dogs at the lobby of the hotel. When I asked why the police were there, I was told that the hotel had received a phone call saying there was a bomb in the building. I phoned my older children and told them to wake up their younger cousins, that I would have some cars waiting, and that everyone was to leave the hotel and go to our home. I told my sister and brothers the same thing. Many anxious hours later, we were there were no bombs in the hotel and that it had been told just a crank call which the hotel received. It was someone's idea of a joke : those two buildings in New York City had collapsed into dust and thousands of people had died, let's see if we can scare some people here.
And this happened in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.
In other words, the repercussions of 9/11 were not confined to non-Muslim countries of the West: we, as Muslims, in a country where Islam is the official religion, also felt the same anguish and were subjected to the same fears.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
When I say we need to build bridges between Islam and the West, this is the sort of experience which many people had gone through, and which should be brought to attention to all of us, regardless where we live or what we believe in. Whether we are Muslims or not, whether we have Caucasian blood coursing through our bodies, or we don't, we share a lot in common with each other : we all have families and friends whom we love. When we see men and women mourning for their loved ones, we react, not with indifference because they are not Muslims, but because we share the same emotions as them.
When he met with Muslims from around the world, Akbar Ahmed would try to make them understand that not everyone in the West - in particular those who were Christians or Jews - should be banded together. He writes :
"I noted that a bishop and a rabbi, as well as others, had quite consciously reached out to me in Washington in the dark days after 9/11 and made me feel welcome, and mentioned especially the Christmas greeting sent by one - Bishop John Chane of the National Cathedral - which moved me greatly with its Abrahamic message of compassion, understanding, and above all, unity: 'The Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the Law to Moses,' it read, and to 'reveal the sacred Quran to the Prophet Muhammad.'
...the bishop's words displayed extraordinary courage, imagination, and compassion."
- "Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization" by Akbar Ahmed, 2007.
Post 9/11, most of us Muslims live in as much fear of Muslim terrorists as non-Muslims do.
BUT, in the same way that we sympathized with the families of those who were killed on 9/11, we also wish to see an end to the sufferings of the people in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. Just as the families of the victims of 9/11 mourned for them,
the Afghans, the Iraqis and the Palestinians too have grieved for members of their families who had been killed. In addition, most of them have had their homes, many parts of their towns and cities destroyed.
WHO ARE THESE MUSLIMS?
One of the misconceptions about Islam is that it is a religion that is made up of a majority of Arabs.
In actual fact, "...The majority of the world's Muslims live in Asia and Africa, not the Arab world....There are 57 countries around the world that are majority Muslims or have significant Muslim minorities - Arabs make up only roughly 20% of the global Muslim population." - "Who Speaks for Islam?" by John L. Esposito & Dalia Mogahed.
For far too long, those of us who consider ourselves as moderate Muslims have remained silent while the radicals and the extremists among us have chosen to voice and act out their anger and grievances with the West. They have done so in the name of Islam.
Now, the moderate Muslims must speak up, before the misconceptions and misunderstandings which exist between Islam and the West escalate further.
We have to understand that it is difficult for non-Muslim people in the West to think of Islam as a religion of peace when much of what they hear and know is about bombings in cities the world over : the Bali bombings in ..(year), the London bombings of 2007, hotels targeted in Mumbai in ... , the constant unrest in Pakistan, with the latest suicide bombing of a Sufi shrine in Lahore on ... (date) this year.
So, most Muslims are seen as no different from the terrorists who have caught the attention and the interest of the world's media. And most of us use these words without really knowing their origins or their meanings : the word "terrorism" is derived from the Latin "terrere", which means "to make someone tremble".
- "How To Win a Cosmic War: Confronting Radical Islam" by Reza Aslan, 2009.
There is another fact that we all need to know, and that is, that prior to and after 9/11, there had and has been other terrorist attacks in the United States of America :
“…the vast majority of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil have been perpetrated by Christian terrorist groups in the past 15 years. Catholics, Lutheran, and Presbyterian activists have bombed gay bars, shot or killed abortion staff, and bombed their clinics. White Christian supremacy inspired the attacks on the Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta and many other incidents. Timothy McVeigh used Christian cosmotheism, espoused by William Pierce, to justify bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. However different, religions have become a means to legitimize holy and unholy struggles and wars.”
- “Who Speaks for Islam : What A Billion Muslims Really Think” by John L. Esposito & Dalia Mogahed.
In the same way that we sympathized with the families of those killed on 9/11, we also wish to see an end to the sufferings of the people in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. Just as the families of the victims of 9/11 mourned for them, the Afghans, the Iraqis and the Palestinians too have grieved for members of their families who had been killed. In addition, most of them have had their homes, many parts of their towns and cities destroyed.
For those in the West, who depend upon television and news items to know or read about Muslims, the present-day perception of Muslims as depicted by the media is often of robed men and women in sparse and arid lands dotted with villages. These images depict a people who are poor and, by inference, uneducated. The other images of Muslims are of machine-wielding men, their headgear covering their faces and only showing their eyes; eyes filled with anger or desperation. Then there are the women : heads bowed, distrustfully looking into journalists' cameras, their clothes drab and shabby.
So, for most people in the West, Muslims in the East are seen as backward, poor people.
My own experiences before performing the Umrah and during the Umrah:
re Arabs - their food, their clothes, language compared with SE-Asia : people from this region have similar features, we eat almost the same foods e.g. steamed white rice, chilies, and curries.
In many ways I have more in common with the peoples of this region even though they may be of different faiths : Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.
Not many people are aware either that Islamic civilizations had existed and flourished from the 7th to the 17th centuries. The Islamic civilization was known for its arts, sciences, medicine and its many inventions.
Let us look at just one example out of many:
"The Professor's Chair"
"You must have wondered why a chairman or woman, a professional head of an organization, is called by such a title. In today's terminology they are often just referred to as the 'chair'. This usually means a professor who has been awarded the chair of, say, mathematics, or it is a president who presides at the meetings of an organization and people have to address their remarks to this 'chair' person.
...If we go back to the teaching in the mosques, Muslim schools and universities over a thousand years ago, we'll find a study circle or a Halaqat al-'ilm or halaqa gathered around a professor who was seated on a chair, or kursi in Arabic....It is this notion of 'chair', or 'kursi', that evolved into a professional position, like the chair of a board or a committee.
At a meeting of Hewlett-Packard's worldwide managers on 26 September, 2001, (15 days after 9/11), Ms Carleton Fiorina, the CEO of Hewlett-Packard Corporation said :
"There was once a civilization that was the greatest in the world. It was able to create a continental super-state that stretched from ocean to ocean and from northern climes to tropics and deserts. Within its dominion, lived hundreds of millions of people, of different creeds and ethnic origins.
One of its languages became the universal language of much of the world, the bridge between the peoples of a hundred lands. Its armies were made up of people of many nationalities, and its military protection allowed a degree of peace and prosperity that had never been known. The reach of this civilization's commerce extended from Latin America to China, and everywhere in between.
And this civilization was driven more than anything, by invention. Its architects designed buildings that defied gravity. Its mathematicians created the algebra and algorithms that would enable the building of computers, and the creation of encryption. Its doctors examined the human body, and found new cures for disease. Its astronomers looked into the heavens, named the stars, and paved the way for space travel and exploration. Its writers created thousands of stories...Its poets wrote of love...
While modern Western civilization shares many of these traits, the civilization I'm talking about was the Islamic world from the year 800 to 1600, which included the Ottoman Empire and the courts of Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo...
Although we are often unaware of our indebtness to this other civilization, its gifts are very much a part of our heritage. The technology industry would not exist without the contributions of Arab mathematicians."
- "1001 Inventions: Muslim Heritage in Our World" edited by Salam T. S. Al-Hassani.
BUILDING BRIDGES BETWEEN MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS :
1. While we Muslims often bemoan the fact that the West do not understand us, we are not without fault either. In conversations with Malaysian Muslims, I noted that when we talk about Christians, it is to see them - the Christians - as one group of people, without acknowledging that they too are divided into different denominations, similar to Muslims bring either Sunnis or Shiahs. Thus there is a NEED to have a mutual understanding and knowledge of each other : if we expect the West and Western Christians to understand us, we must also make an effort to learn about them and understand them.
2. The concept of mutual respect and understanding is important if we are to rid the stereotypical image of Muslims as extremists and terrorists. Muslims must know that we share a history together with Jews and Christians:
"...the Syrian minister of expatriates, Bouthaina Shaaban, and many other Muslims throughout our travels expressed...sentiments of communal spirituality. Shaaban told us that "from 627 to 647 C.E., Muslims and Christians were praying together in the Umayyad Mosque until they decided to build a church. We shouldn't think of East and West. You can't be a Muslim until you believe in Abraham and Christ. The oldest synagogue in the world is in Damascus. The oldest church in the world is in Damascus." "
re: the Grand Mosque in Damascus:
"...The mosque holds a shrine dedicated to the head of John the Baptist, who is revered in Islam as Yahya the Prophet; another shrine for Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet of Islam and the son of Ali, who is especially venerated by the Shia; and, just outside the mosque's walls, a simple and small grave for Saladin, one of the greatest rulers of Islam....On my visit, I saw all manner of pilgrims at each of thee historical sites : Christians and Muslims praying at John's shrine, Shia women dressed in black who were from Iran and still mourning the death of Hussein, and scholars and tourists paying quiet tribute to the great Saladin."
- "Journey Into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization" by Akbar Ahmed.
3. My own experiences before performing the Umrah and during the Umrah:
re Arabs - their food, their clothes, language compared with SE-Asia : people from this region have similar features, we eat almost the same foods e.g. steamed white rice, chilies, and curries.
In many ways I have more in common with the peoples of this region even though they may be of different faiths: Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.
-----------------------------------------------------
(In her closing remarks, HRH Raja Zarith Sofiah also recognised the situation in Malaysia. She observed that many Muslims remained uncomfortable living and working with non-Muslims. She noted that the Prophet Muhammad was once recorded as having said that the ink of the scholar is more valuable than the blood of martyrs. Therefore, she exhorts Muslims to pursue scholarly studies and imitate the example of the Prophet of Islam who was moderate in his faith. She concluded by stating that it was necessary for Malaysian Muslims to learn how to build bridges with non-Muslims in this country before they hope to have any success at building bridges with the West.)
"Building Bridges Between Islam & the West"
by Raja Zarith Idris.
INTRODUCTION:
BISMILLAHIR RAHMANIR RAHIM.
ASSALAMU ALAIKUM WARAHMATULLAHI WABARAKAATUH.
ALHAMDULILLAHI RABBIL AALAMIN. WASOOLATU WASSALAMU ALAA SAIDINA MUHAMMADIN WA ALA AALIHI WASOHBIHI AJMAAIN.
Your Excellencies, Ladies & Gentlemen,
Good Morning,
Thank you very much for being a part of this forum today.
There is a great need now, more than ever, to build bridges between Muslim people and the West because there is just too much mistrust, enmity and paranoia which exist in our world today. And more than ever, Islam and Muslims have become part of constant news items. Thousands of articles appear in magazines about Islam, and just as many, if not more, books have been written for and against Islam.
On 27 October, 1993, HRH Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, gave a lecture at the Sheldonian Theatre, University of Oxford, entitled "Islam and the West". Part of what he said includes the following :
"If there is much misunderstanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is also much ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilization owe to the Islamic world...The medieval Islamic world, from central Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of learning flourished. But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society, and system of belief, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own history."
If, in 1993, Islam had already been seen as "the enemy of the West", then imagine how Islam was perceived after the events of 11 September, 2001, events that are etched into the minds of everyone around the world, regardless of what race or religion they may be.
In the wake of what happened in New York City, the Pentagon and Washington DC, many hundreds of thousands of writers, journalists, political analysts, social commentators, academicians, from both Muslims and non-Muslims, from East or West, have tried to describe and analyze that day's events.
One writer, Akbar Ahmed, wrote that in the course of doing research for one of his latest books:
"...each and every discussion led directly or indirectly to events that took place far away in America...The United States and the Muslim world had become irreversibly connected in an adversarial relationship, and henceforth every action taken by one side would elicit a reaction from the other. September 11 changed and challenged both worlds in unexpected ways."
- "Journey Into Islam; The Crisis of Globalization" by Akbar Ahmed, 2007.
The reason I believe in building bridges of mutual understanding between Muslims and the non-Muslim people of the West is because most people do not know the impact that 9/11 had on us as Muslims. It is not as if we remained unaffected.
I would like to share with you my own experiences :
My family was in Johor Bahru for the school break. I had gone to the hotel to see them in the evening and had just arrived home and was watching television with my husband when our daughter rushed into our room and said, "Watch CNN! Watch CNN!"
So we switched channels. And there was that unbelievable footage of one of the towers of the World Trade Centre in New York with plumes of black smoke drifting upwards from its middle floors.
And of course we all remember what we saw next: the image of the second plane flying straight into the second tower.
I remember all of us watching the footages over and over again, as we stayed staring at our television screen for the next 2 hours or more.
For almost the whole of the next day and night, The next evening, the televisions in all my family's rooms at the hotel were switched on to one or another news channels. I remember very vividly, until today, of sitting and watching television with my mother, as an American woman described how her son had phoned her from one of the two planes and had said to her that he wanted her to know he loved her. We were both badly affected by what she had said and by her tear-stained face. During those few minutes of seeing a mother mourn for her son, thousands of miles away from us, I know that my mother did not think, "Oh well, she's not a Muslim like us" and neither did I. At that moment, we were just three women who knew what being a mother meant.
When I went to the hotel again the following day - we had planned to take all our children to Singapore - I saw police cars and policemen with sniffer dogs at the lobby of the hotel. When I asked why the police were there, I was told that the hotel had received a phone call saying there was a bomb in the building. I phoned my older children and told them to wake up their younger cousins, that I would have some cars waiting, and that everyone was to leave the hotel and go to our home. I told my sister and brothers the same thing. Many anxious hours later, we were there were no bombs in the hotel and that it had been told just a crank call which the hotel received. It was someone's idea of a joke : those two buildings in New York City had collapsed into dust and thousands of people had died, let's see if we can scare some people here.
And this happened in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.
In other words, the repercussions of 9/11 were not confined to non-Muslim countries of the West: we, as Muslims, in a country where Islam is the official religion, also felt the same anguish and were subjected to the same fears.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
When I say we need to build bridges between Islam and the West, this is the sort of experience which many people had gone through, and which should be brought to attention to all of us, regardless where we live or what we believe in. Whether we are Muslims or not, whether we have Caucasian blood coursing through our bodies, or we don't, we share a lot in common with each other : we all have families and friends whom we love. When we see men and women mourning for their loved ones, we react, not with indifference because they are not Muslims, but because we share the same emotions as them.
When he met with Muslims from around the world, Akbar Ahmed would try to make them understand that not everyone in the West - in particular those who were Christians or Jews - should be banded together. He writes :
"I noted that a bishop and a rabbi, as well as others, had quite consciously reached out to me in Washington in the dark days after 9/11 and made me feel welcome, and mentioned especially the Christmas greeting sent by one - Bishop John Chane of the National Cathedral - which moved me greatly with its Abrahamic message of compassion, understanding, and above all, unity: 'The Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the Law to Moses,' it read, and to 'reveal the sacred Quran to the Prophet Muhammad.'
...the bishop's words displayed extraordinary courage, imagination, and compassion."
- "Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization" by Akbar Ahmed, 2007.
Post 9/11, most of us Muslims live in as much fear of Muslim terrorists as non-Muslims do.
BUT, in the same way that we sympathized with the families of those who were killed on 9/11, we also wish to see an end to the sufferings of the people in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. Just as the families of the victims of 9/11 mourned for them,
the Afghans, the Iraqis and the Palestinians too have grieved for members of their families who had been killed. In addition, most of them have had their homes, many parts of their towns and cities destroyed.
WHO ARE THESE MUSLIMS?
One of the misconceptions about Islam is that it is a religion that is made up of a majority of Arabs.
In actual fact, "...The majority of the world's Muslims live in Asia and Africa, not the Arab world....There are 57 countries around the world that are majority Muslims or have significant Muslim minorities - Arabs make up only roughly 20% of the global Muslim population." - "Who Speaks for Islam?" by John L. Esposito & Dalia Mogahed.
For far too long, those of us who consider ourselves as moderate Muslims have remained silent while the radicals and the extremists among us have chosen to voice and act out their anger and grievances with the West. They have done so in the name of Islam.
Now, the moderate Muslims must speak up, before the misconceptions and misunderstandings which exist between Islam and the West escalate further.
We have to understand that it is difficult for non-Muslim people in the West to think of Islam as a religion of peace when much of what they hear and know is about bombings in cities the world over : the Bali bombings in ..(year), the London bombings of 2007, hotels targeted in Mumbai in ... , the constant unrest in Pakistan, with the latest suicide bombing of a Sufi shrine in Lahore on ... (date) this year.
So, most Muslims are seen as no different from the terrorists who have caught the attention and the interest of the world's media. And most of us use these words without really knowing their origins or their meanings : the word "terrorism" is derived from the Latin "terrere", which means "to make someone tremble".
- "How To Win a Cosmic War: Confronting Radical Islam" by Reza Aslan, 2009.
There is another fact that we all need to know, and that is, that prior to and after 9/11, there had and has been other terrorist attacks in the United States of America :
“…the vast majority of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil have been perpetrated by Christian terrorist groups in the past 15 years. Catholics, Lutheran, and Presbyterian activists have bombed gay bars, shot or killed abortion staff, and bombed their clinics. White Christian supremacy inspired the attacks on the Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta and many other incidents. Timothy McVeigh used Christian cosmotheism, espoused by William Pierce, to justify bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. However different, religions have become a means to legitimize holy and unholy struggles and wars.”
- “Who Speaks for Islam : What A Billion Muslims Really Think” by John L. Esposito & Dalia Mogahed.
In the same way that we sympathized with the families of those killed on 9/11, we also wish to see an end to the sufferings of the people in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. Just as the families of the victims of 9/11 mourned for them, the Afghans, the Iraqis and the Palestinians too have grieved for members of their families who had been killed. In addition, most of them have had their homes, many parts of their towns and cities destroyed.
For those in the West, who depend upon television and news items to know or read about Muslims, the present-day perception of Muslims as depicted by the media is often of robed men and women in sparse and arid lands dotted with villages. These images depict a people who are poor and, by inference, uneducated. The other images of Muslims are of machine-wielding men, their headgear covering their faces and only showing their eyes; eyes filled with anger or desperation. Then there are the women : heads bowed, distrustfully looking into journalists' cameras, their clothes drab and shabby.
So, for most people in the West, Muslims in the East are seen as backward, poor people.
My own experiences before performing the Umrah and during the Umrah:
re Arabs - their food, their clothes, language compared with SE-Asia : people from this region have similar features, we eat almost the same foods e.g. steamed white rice, chilies, and curries.
In many ways I have more in common with the peoples of this region even though they may be of different faiths : Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.
Not many people are aware either that Islamic civilizations had existed and flourished from the 7th to the 17th centuries. The Islamic civilization was known for its arts, sciences, medicine and its many inventions.
Let us look at just one example out of many:
"The Professor's Chair"
"You must have wondered why a chairman or woman, a professional head of an organization, is called by such a title. In today's terminology they are often just referred to as the 'chair'. This usually means a professor who has been awarded the chair of, say, mathematics, or it is a president who presides at the meetings of an organization and people have to address their remarks to this 'chair' person.
...If we go back to the teaching in the mosques, Muslim schools and universities over a thousand years ago, we'll find a study circle or a Halaqat al-'ilm or halaqa gathered around a professor who was seated on a chair, or kursi in Arabic....It is this notion of 'chair', or 'kursi', that evolved into a professional position, like the chair of a board or a committee.
At a meeting of Hewlett-Packard's worldwide managers on 26 September, 2001, (15 days after 9/11), Ms Carleton Fiorina, the CEO of Hewlett-Packard Corporation said :
"There was once a civilization that was the greatest in the world. It was able to create a continental super-state that stretched from ocean to ocean and from northern climes to tropics and deserts. Within its dominion, lived hundreds of millions of people, of different creeds and ethnic origins.
One of its languages became the universal language of much of the world, the bridge between the peoples of a hundred lands. Its armies were made up of people of many nationalities, and its military protection allowed a degree of peace and prosperity that had never been known. The reach of this civilization's commerce extended from Latin America to China, and everywhere in between.
And this civilization was driven more than anything, by invention. Its architects designed buildings that defied gravity. Its mathematicians created the algebra and algorithms that would enable the building of computers, and the creation of encryption. Its doctors examined the human body, and found new cures for disease. Its astronomers looked into the heavens, named the stars, and paved the way for space travel and exploration. Its writers created thousands of stories...Its poets wrote of love...
While modern Western civilization shares many of these traits, the civilization I'm talking about was the Islamic world from the year 800 to 1600, which included the Ottoman Empire and the courts of Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo...
Although we are often unaware of our indebtness to this other civilization, its gifts are very much a part of our heritage. The technology industry would not exist without the contributions of Arab mathematicians."
- "1001 Inventions: Muslim Heritage in Our World" edited by Salam T. S. Al-Hassani.
BUILDING BRIDGES BETWEEN MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS :
1. While we Muslims often bemoan the fact that the West do not understand us, we are not without fault either. In conversations with Malaysian Muslims, I noted that when we talk about Christians, it is to see them - the Christians - as one group of people, without acknowledging that they too are divided into different denominations, similar to Muslims bring either Sunnis or Shiahs. Thus there is a NEED to have a mutual understanding and knowledge of each other : if we expect the West and Western Christians to understand us, we must also make an effort to learn about them and understand them.
2. The concept of mutual respect and understanding is important if we are to rid the stereotypical image of Muslims as extremists and terrorists. Muslims must know that we share a history together with Jews and Christians:
"...the Syrian minister of expatriates, Bouthaina Shaaban, and many other Muslims throughout our travels expressed...sentiments of communal spirituality. Shaaban told us that "from 627 to 647 C.E., Muslims and Christians were praying together in the Umayyad Mosque until they decided to build a church. We shouldn't think of East and West. You can't be a Muslim until you believe in Abraham and Christ. The oldest synagogue in the world is in Damascus. The oldest church in the world is in Damascus." "
re: the Grand Mosque in Damascus:
"...The mosque holds a shrine dedicated to the head of John the Baptist, who is revered in Islam as Yahya the Prophet; another shrine for Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet of Islam and the son of Ali, who is especially venerated by the Shia; and, just outside the mosque's walls, a simple and small grave for Saladin, one of the greatest rulers of Islam....On my visit, I saw all manner of pilgrims at each of thee historical sites : Christians and Muslims praying at John's shrine, Shia women dressed in black who were from Iran and still mourning the death of Hussein, and scholars and tourists paying quiet tribute to the great Saladin."
- "Journey Into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization" by Akbar Ahmed.
3. My own experiences before performing the Umrah and during the Umrah:
re Arabs - their food, their clothes, language compared with SE-Asia : people from this region have similar features, we eat almost the same foods e.g. steamed white rice, chilies, and curries.
In many ways I have more in common with the peoples of this region even though they may be of different faiths: Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.
-----------------------------------------------------
(In her closing remarks, HRH Raja Zarith Sofiah also recognised the situation in Malaysia. She observed that many Muslims remained uncomfortable living and working with non-Muslims. She noted that the Prophet Muhammad was once recorded as having said that the ink of the scholar is more valuable than the blood of martyrs. Therefore, she exhorts Muslims to pursue scholarly studies and imitate the example of the Prophet of Islam who was moderate in his faith. She concluded by stating that it was necessary for Malaysian Muslims to learn how to build bridges with non-Muslims in this country before they hope to have any success at building bridges with the West.)
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment