An Islamic Perspective On Inter-Faith Dialogue – Imam Dr Abduljalil Sajid, Edinburgh Central Mosque, 27 November, 2006
thought-provoking talk
very interesting man
made points about how the q’uran teaches that creation is diverse, and that it is not up to human beings to decide what is true, only to live in accordance with the teachings of the prophet and allow judgement to be passed in time.
the q’uran teaches honesty, respect for others, and the inclusion of minorities, so interfaith dialogue follows from this naturally, in his opinion.
faith is needed, and what matters is that we understand that each person needs to find their own way of understanding, it is not our place to presume to know what is right for everyone, we should focus instead on figuring out what is right for us and then finding what we can agree on with others and working from there.
that’s my overall summary in retrospect, though i’m sure it’s affected by my own interpretations. during the lecture i struggled with the idea that one way of seeing the tolerance he was suggesting was as a kind of test for the faithful – “hey dudes, it doesn’t matter if they get it right. just focus on knowing that YOU got it right, and be nice. if they don’t get their shit in order in time, that’s their problem.”
in the end, these reservations were lessened a good bit during the q&a, when dr. sajid got the chance to give a more nuanced description of what he means by respect and how fundamentally he holds the contention that we can’t really pretend to know the whole truth. but the questions from the audience suggested that the deeper struggle is still with the seeming paradox of believing in The Truth and being respectful of other opinions, so i think there is still a mental leap to make before we really grok the interfaith cooperation thing at a cultural level.
here are the notes i took during the session:
“to believe that everyone is deserving of respect, and to focus on finding a common ground.
but beneath this, do we believe that our understanding of truth is the correct way, and it simply isn’t our job to convince others, it is only our job to live well and let them make up their own minds? so our tolerance of other beliefs is kind of a test of our own faith, but we still have a deeper belief in our worldview, and its kind of like “too bad” for people who don’t get it?
the ends achievable through these means seem very powerful, but what does it mean about our conception of truth? is it possible for us to not only believe that we should tolerate other wrong beliefs because such tolerance is a part of the right beliefs, but to actually believe that there is more than one sort of rightness? what if the truth is actually impossible to comprehend from any one perspective, so we have different religions and philosophies because they transform the truth into contextualized metaphors that are most likely to lead us to right behavior? so the real belief is in right behavior, and the respect for other perspectives comes not from a belief that tolerance of inaccuracy is a test of faith but because any path to right behavior is deserving of respect and admiration and genuine interest. so debates over points of religion are not about what is true and what is false, but about how well a creed or perspective leads to right behavior.
so under that, there is a belief in right behavior. the difference of opinion comes in regarding where that rightness comes from.
what we have to decide is whether we are more committed to getting to a place where we all believe the same things or a place where we all agree on what constitutes right action.
i’m saying that the mental leap is to understand that different beliefs are the only path to similar actions, because we are all living in different contexts.
so the separation of church and state is different than the separation of faith and state.
what we agree on is that there is some force compelling us to right action, and we may believe that our way is right, but we can’t say that the existence of multiple paths is not the only want to reach a common destination.
the danger is in confusing our own personal revelations with The Way It is. we know that we need to figure things out, but we should be comfortable with the idea that our own truths do not need to be everyone’s truths in order for them to be valid. all that matters is that they direct us to do good. ”
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i think these are pretty good notes, and they felt good at the time in terms of getting stuff out of the head and onto the page, but they’re still rather scattered and susceptible to the “sounds a lot more obvious than it felt” phenomenon.
a lot of these things relate to stuff i’m thinking about in general regarding the quest for the certainty of purpose that i need to pick a project and stick with it, and the motivation to kick my work into a higher gear once i’m there.
or, at least, i Made them relate to those things, and the illusion was heightened because i had the gift of two chats with erik tonight, both before and after the talk, and even though we did manage to discuss a range of things, the larger arcs still fed these same fires as if they were scripted for the task. while that is probably partly because we really are dealing with some similar shit, i am sure that it is also partly just that i was in one of those “whoa! everything relates to this!!” kind of moods, so i only hope that the relevance to what erik was actually saying and thinking was not entirely in my mind, and therefore i didn’t completely commandeer the conversations to serve my own ends.
muhahaha
anyway, i don’t know how much of it is my mind just grasping for answers to some of the questions i’ve been grappling with of late, but i do know that, in the meet and greet after the talk, and on my walk home, i felt a sort of clarity. it felt easier to look people in the eye and actually listen. it was easier to smile at strangers on the street and really mean it. i felt ready and excited to talk about things, and more capable of really believing what i always tell myself – that changing my mind is an exciting victory in the cause of better understanding, rather than a referendum on things i should have known all along.
i felt less defensive and more ready to just work, which is the real goal i have been seeing lately, because i think that a lot of people are afraid of different ways of thinking because they feel that their own way of life is threatened, and the only way they know how to react is to lash out and claim theirs as the way of truth and light. we are stuck in a mindset where things need to be one way or the other, even as we spout rhetoric about honoring diversity and try to believe it as long as it isn’t really threatening us. but it’s hard to really wrap our minds around, and we need to get cracking if we are going to survive in our new world of thinner borders.
and whether i have been able to articulate it or not, tonight i had a glimmer of a moment where i could actually see it, and that’s something to celebrate.
cheers!