A friend recently introduced me to an online discussion going on through emails on religion. Unfortunately it seems to have deformed to cursing and abusing activity rather than anything constructive. After having tolerated the flood of mails hurling abuses at each other’s faiths I decided to reply to a contributor who seems to be a Christian and calls himself Servant of Jesus and others.
The correspondence is given below:
“Look folks, I have been following your arguments for considerable time. I would not make any bones about the fact that in the heart of my hearts I am a deeply religious Muslim and insults regarding my faith and creed really hurt me. But let me also not mince a word on this. In my early youth I was seized by what I would call the ghost of a Muslim missionary and I would spend hours and hours in convincing people of my religion that I would lose track of the minute difference between defending my faith and fighting for the satisfaction of my personal ego. It was later that I realised that all such stuff was pointless. Allah, God, Yahweh, Eeshwar, or whosoever it is He doesnt want us to be upon each other throats. We need not to indulge in unnecessary and fruitless discussions on religion. I am a Muslim and it is part of my faith that no matter whatever argument you bring to me I’ll still stick to my faith. I am sure you’ll do the same. So instead of hurling abuses on eachother let us learn to tolerate eachother. Every faith has its own literature so vast that it can be used to simultaneously inculcate peace and incite violence. Why waste time in destructive efforts? There is enough poverty and challenges like climatic meltdown that face our collective future. Why should we not try true essence of humanity and stop adding to our plate of troubles?
I personally have friends among Christians, Jews, Hindus and Zoroastrians. I respect their religion and they respect my choices. Whenever we talk we talk of commonalities not discrepancies. Again those who think it is fine to malign Muslims because they are already under thick cloud let me remind them that we are a quarter of the world population. Even if they hate us so much that they want to kill us they won’t succeed. So what’s the point in this useless meddling in each other’s faith. It was God’s will that like blooming flowers there should be more than one creed. Who are we to under estimate His widom?
Let me conclude by invoking a metaphor. Gulliver goes to Lilliput and finds that the pygmies of lilliput often fight with their neighbour blefuscu on the issue of breaking egg from small side or the other. I am sure we all are not pygmies.
Best regards,
FKP
In reply On 8/13/06, Servant_Of_Jesus Messiah wrote:
Sir,
good for you. then rise against all kinds of injustices. including the ones that moslems commit such as honor-killings, terror, anti-knowledge attitudes that
prevails in the moslem world, subjugation of women, religious freedom
such as moslems killing others who preach other religions in moslem lands
while moslems preach freely their islam in non-moslem countries. (this is a very bad one that is moslems commit against the rest of humanity)
fight all these injustices. that is the true jihaad…
In response I wrote:
Honor killings, terrorism, anti-knowledge attitudes and subjugation of women are evils that should be condemned no matter from wherever they come. Women are half of the world’s population. We don’t have any right and there is no reason in subjugating them. Terrorism kills innocent citizens, its all forms and manifestations should be fought. These are cultural issues and not essentially religious. Jihad in essence means struggle and there is no shred of doubt in my mind that it includes fighting such evils. But won’t you agree that bitterness created by anger management issues can never be a panacea. How can rationality and the rational ones prevail in the Muslim world if we keep receiving insults and humiliation all the time. The best way is to stand together and fight them in our respective domains. I for one have always used my pen and my body and soul to fight such evils.
And as ffor preaching I believe that there should be moratorium by all religions to stop luring believers to their own faith because even though there are some who succeed in doing so it mostly gives way to hatred and friction. This may sound an onerous antidote but this is the only solution till humanity becomes rational and pluralist enough to tolerate privacy of religion.
best regards,
FKP
March 2nd, 2008 | Category: Old Posts | 
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