By: Imam Shamsi Ali
Since my arrival in my current adopted home, the United States of America, I have made interfaith dialogue with all my fellow New Yorkers, Americans, and citizens of the world, and with all backgrounds (Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and others) one of my priorities in my public engagements as an Imam. This has been even more urgent with the tragic event of the 9/11 terrorist attack to NYC. The call to engage in interfaith dialogue since then became an urgent one.
My engagement in the interfaith dialogue has nothing to do with my being a minority group in US. It has also nothing to do with the rise of Islamophobia especially after the 9/11 events. Those are secondary in purpose. The main objective of my interfaith dialogue is a part of my commitment to the teaching of Islam, particularly in line with Ch. 19 verse 13 where Allah commanded the believers to engage in “ta’aruf” (getting to know one another). Later as I transformed deeper in my religious understanding based on the context of the environment where I live, I began to translate the word “ta’aruf” into interfaith/inter-community dialogue.
In addition to following the teaching of the Qur’an to engage in dialogue, I have come also to realize that the world we live in is deeply global in nature and is identified by, among others, a deep interconnectedness. In other words, all citizens of the world, as individuals and groups can not live without being inherently connected to their other fellow human beings around them. This global interconnectedness is actually addressed by the verse: “O mankind we created you from a male and a female, and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you get to know one another”. Once again “getting to know one another” is a way to address this interconnected world.
What is more important for me to underline in this writing is that my interfaith engagement is primarily and inherently based on commonly agreed human values; such as respect of humans life and dignity, human rights, equality and justice for all. This means my interfaith engagements are motivated and intended to advance human relations rather than for narrow sentimental or emotional connections. With this I will defend and speak up for the rights of all human beings, regardless of their associations and status. I do believe our common values transcend all bounds, be they religious, ethnic and racial, or national bounds.
This is the very fundamental reason why I am speaking up in defense of the Palestinians. It’s not in the first place because they are in majority Muslims but rather because of the human values I cherish and advocate for highly. I respect their lives equally to the lives of others. I honor their rights to dignity, justice and freedom as I honor the rights of dignity, justice and freedom for others. Above all, I see them as human beings who deserve to be treated equally as other human beings do.
This is the principle reason I call upon my interfaith partners to follow the same path, the path of common values and humanity in pursuing our interfaith engagements together. Let’s put forward human lives, human dignity, human rights, human equality and justice for all as the foundation of our interfaith dialogue. Only by advancing our common and shared values will we then be able to achieve genuine and sustainable peace. Otherwise our interfaith dialogue will just “kumbaya” sung from to time that has no real lasting effect in our relations.
For this to happen honesty is needed. Dishonesty in interfaith dialogue, the tendency of politicking our interfaith dialogue for narrow and one sided interests, will not help us all moving to what is intended for with these dialogues. Suspicions will remain and possibly undesirable feelings that may lead to a kind of dislike and even hatred to one another will again grow despite the intense engagements we may pursue.
With the unfolding human tragedy in Gaza, the mass killing of Palestinians, the majority of them are children and women, the complete destruction of infrastructure; homes, schools, hospitals, even houses of worship (mosques and churches), we may ask ourselves: are we really honest with our interfaith dialogue? A dialogue which is supposedly based on the cherished values of ours to respect of humans lives, dignity, equality, peace, and justice? Or have we been dishonest in our interfaith engagements and twisted the values we share and cherish into egoistic narrow political interests?
This fundamental question needs to be asked and addressed in order to pursue further our steps in interfaith dialogue that may lead to genuine and sustainable co-existence and world peace. We must be able and courageous to put aside our narrow political views and egoistic attitude towards the unfolding human tragedy in front of our very own eyes. Our honesty to our shared human values must remind us of our religious conviction that “killing one person is equivalent to the killing of all mankind”. And that every man and woman deserves his/her basic right to freedom, human dignity, equality and justice respected and honored.
And for this values I would like to say, you don’t need to be Palestinians or Muslims to speak up against the continued mass killings and genocide in Gaza and other parts of Palestinian lands. As you don’t have to be Jewish or Muslim to call for the release of the Jewish and Palestinian innocent civilian captives. What you need, is to be human and honest to those values we cherish and share. This is because of our common and shared values we must call for a ceasefire and to immediately stop this horrific unfolding massacres and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
May Allah continue to strengthen and empower us to continue being consistent to the values we claim to cherish, be proud of, and continue to advocate for to the rest of the globe. Otherwise we will shamelessly present ourselves with double standards and hypocrisy. God forbid!
(President of Nusantara Foundation, Director of Jamaica Muslim Center, Co-Author of Sons of Abraham: issues that unite and divide Jews and Muslims).