Islam, Muslims and Interfaith Understanding

By Victor Edwin

New Delhi: Waris Mazhari is a traditionally-trained Islamic scholar. He teaches in the Department of Islamic Studies, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi. He graduated from the Dar ul-Uloom Deoband, one of the largest traditional Islamic seminaries in the world, and did his doctorate from the Department of Islamic Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He has written extensively on various issues related to Islam, Muslims and interfaith relations. In an interview for Matters India, Mazhari spoke to Jesuit Father Joseph Victor Edwin about his life, work, and issues related to Islam, Muslims and interfaith understanding and inter-community harmony.

Matters India: Could you please share something about your family background?

Waris Mazhari: I was born in a middle-class Muslim family in a village in Bihar’s Samastipur district. My father had received what is called a ‘modern’ education. He was a poet and was fond of literature. In his younger days, he turned quite religious and adopted the external appearance of a traditional Islamic scholar or alim. My mother was a traditionally educated religious woman. I was less than a year old when my parents died at the same time. I was then brought up by my paternal grandmother and my elder sisters. One of my four sisters took on the responsibility for my education. In this way, I was able to study in various madrasas, and later, to acquire higher education in a university.

Did the neighborhood where you were brought up have people from different religious backgrounds, or was it largely people from a single religious community?

Our village, and he villages around ours, all had a Hindu majority. There were only Hindus and Muslims in our area, as far as I know. Till I remained in our village, I had never met a person from any religious community other than Muslims and Hindus.

Growing up, did you have any friends from other religious backgrounds? If so, how do you think this impacted on your understanding of other religions and their followers?

We would meet with Hindus daily. Many Hindus would come to our home, and we would go to their homes too. We would exchange visits on occasions of joy and sorrow. In fact, most of our economic dealings and transactions were with Hindus, because most shops in the local market were Hindu-owned. This was the pattern that had carried on for generations.

We had very cordial relations with local Hindus. The members of the two communities—Hindus and Muslims—were different only in terms of their religious beliefs and rituals and almost nothing else.

My education took place in an Islamic madrasa—due to economic compulsions I couldn’t study in a regular school. Only Muslim children studied in the madrasa, and so I had no Hindus among my schoolmates. Because of this, at the personal level, there were no Hindus among my close friends. However, I did have close relations with many Hindu boys in my village and members of their families. Also, my two elder brothers had some good Hindu friends. This gave me the chance to learn about their religious beliefs, rituals and practices. Because of this, I developed the desire to understand other religions and to relate with their followers positively.

I can say that I have good feelings for other religions and their adherents and in this, a big factor has been the environment in which I was born and brought up, in a small village in Bihar.

Many children are socialized in childhood itself into imbibing certain negative stereotypes about other religions and their adherents. Was this the case with you too, when you were young?

No, growing up, I didn’t imbibe any negative stereotypes about other religions and their adherents. Actually, negative stereotypes arise when you have kept a distance from others and when others also don’t want to come near you. But our case was very different, as I explained earlier. However, among the local Hindus themselves, there was considerable discrimination, on the basis of caste. Witnessing this made me very sad. On a few occasions, I too had to face such treatment at the hands of some uneducated Hindu families in some neighbouring villages. But we did not give this much importance, because such incidents were actually few.

How were your parents’ relations with people of other faiths?

My parents died when I was very small—I was the last of their children—and so I don’t know much about them. But I do know that my siblings had very good relations with local Hindus.

Is there something particularly striking in what you remember of how your family members related to people of other faiths which might have played some role in inspiring you later to be concerned with trying to promote inter-community understanding and harmony?

I can’t recall any particularly special event in this regard. But I do know that after my parents died in an accident, a Hindu friend of my father’s offered to help us children. This left a big impact on my siblings, and especially me. I was very young then. My elder sisters narrated this incident to me later.

You spent many years studying Islam in different madrasas and also at a university. How do you see the general attitude towards the issue of interfaith understanding and inter-communal harmony in such places?

There are very few madrasa students and graduates—and this includes even those who have studied in madrasas and have then gone on to study in a regular university—who give due importance to inter-community interaction in its proper context. Most of them think of people of other faith communities from the perspective of proselytization—that is to say, of presenting others the dawah or invitation of Islam. They think that establishing good relations with others is a means for this. But if one removes the aspect of dawah and simply focuses on trying to establish good, brotherly relations with people of other faiths as an end in itself and for its own sake, there is confusion in their minds. This is because in the madrasas, their minds have been shaped by concepts and rules of medieval Islamic jurisprudence or Fiqh, in which the idea of the harmonious coexistence of diverse religious communities as equals in a multicultural and secular society is absent.

You have written quite a bit about the need for Muslims to engage in interfaith dialogue and understanding. What made you do so?

I entered the madrasa when I was quite old, relatively speaking. In fact, I was the oldest student in class. Even while I was a student in the madrasa I developed a deep interest in subjects like literature, history, culture, sociology and politics. That is why I tried to understand religious texts and scriptures from the perspective of the social sciences, rather than the other way round, as is often the case with madrasa students—that is, trying to understand society in the light of religious texts. Because of this, my approach with regard to religion was distinct from that of others.

With regard to the interfaith issue, I felt that religion itself demands that in social life one should give priority to establishing good relations between people of different faith communities, and if in this matter some restrictiveness and narrowness is found in Islamic Fiqh, it ought to be rethought or relooked at.

Islamic Fiqh is not the text of the Quran; it is simply a human effort to try to understand God’s commandments, an effort that may sometimes succeed and may at other times fail. We can get an idea of this success or failure from what impact—positive or negative—this or that rule of Fiqh has on human life at the empirical level. If it has a negative impact, it ought to be rethought, and, if need be, replaced. This holds true with regard to Fiqh rules on interfaith relations in the same way as it does for rules about many other issues.

Ours is an age of interfaith dialogue. Without such dialogue we simply cannot live in peace in a plural society—and the whole world has become, as it were, one large plural society. Social peace, which is a basic requirement for human beings, cannot be engendered without all classes and groups of society—and this includes religious communities—having warm and cordial relations with each other and living in harmony.

This realisation inspires me to contribute, in my own small way, in helping Muslims and people from other faith communities to understand, appreciate and respect one another. And writing is one way that I try to do this.

What has been the sort of response that you have got, including from fellow Islamic scholars or ulema, to this sort of writing of yours?

My experience in this regard has been mixed. Some traditionalist sorts of people were critical of these efforts on my part. They claimed that these were simply a means to flatter and please others, motivated, they alleged, by a desire for monetary benefit or to win fame. But many other people appreciated my efforts and encouraged me.

Besides writing, have you engaged in any other form of interfaith dialogue related work?

A: Over the years, I have been participating in seminars and workshops on themes related to interfaith relations, religious pluralism and the like. For two years (2011-13), I was a research associate with the Virtual Dialogue programme of Duke University, USA.

I must add, though, that besides through writing and other such literary and academic work, I have not done very much, in practical terms, for inter-religious dialogue. However, I do hope I can do so in the future, through the organisation that I recently established, the Institute of Religious and Social Thought (IRST). Among the primary objectives of the institute is engaging in intellectual and practical work for interfaith dialogue and inter-community harmony.

Have you studied religions other than Islam? If so, could you please share how you may have benefitted as a result of this?

I have also studied other religions and have benefitted quite a lot from this. I have been interested to learn what things there are in common between Islam and other religions. I believe that there are more things in common between Islam and other faiths than the things on which they differ. However, the case may be different for some religions that do not have the concept of the Creator God.

Christianity and Judaism are also called ‘Semitic’ religions, and one could call them older editions of Islam. It is true that Muslims believe that several changes have been made in them. Be that as it may, the Christian tradition of service to humankind and the passion for this cause impress me deeply. The spirit of the Islamic tradition is the same too, but in actual practice, it is now hardly found among Muslims.

Hinduism, like Islam, has the concept of One God. Like Islam, it too stresses the Oneness of Reality. The Advaita Vedanta philosophy is precisely the same as what is called Wahdat al-Wujud or ‘the Unity of Being’ in the Islamic tradition. In the Vedantic tradition, there is an impressive concept of universal brotherhood. This sort of thinking enabled India to become a cradle of different religions.

Hinduism has an enormous capacity to incorporate diversities and differences. In other words, there is tremendous inclusiveness among Hindus with regard to religious beliefs. It is because of this that Hindu society has no practice of declaring people as apostates and unbelievers.

So, these are some good things about some other religions that have influenced me and which I have tried to benefit from in my own life.

There are two very different ways to address issues of inter-community conflict and inter-community harmony. One is to seek to critique, oppose, denounce and combat what is called ‘communalism’. Another approach seeks to promote inter-community bridge-building and understanding through inner transformation and positive interpersonal interaction. As a means for seeking to improve inter-community relations, how do you look at these two distinct approaches? Which of these do you think is more effective in changing people’s hearts, transforming their minds and promoting genuine regard and respect for people from diverse faith backgrounds?

In my view, the second approach is undoubtedly much more beneficial, much more effective in terms of empirical impact, and much more fruitful in terms of positive results. This approach helps transform the heart, rather than just the mind or the head. In the Islamic tradition, this has been the method of the Sufis. Sometimes, a huge corpus of books cannot do that which just two kind words can. That is why I think that we should try to promote as much positive interaction between people from different faith backgrounds as possible. This can be much more productive in terms of promoting understanding, harmony, friendship and goodwill between people from different religious groups than just talking about interfaith harmony in seminars or simply by writing about it. I myself have personally experienced how when people from different religious backgrounds sit together in a friendly environment, misunderstandings about each other that had remained deeply ingrained for years—even generations—can dissolve in just a few brief moments!

Negative stereotypes that members of different religious communities may have about each other can hardly ever be removed by merely studying books about each other’s faiths. For that, one needs positive, friendly personal interaction.

That said, we should also keep in mind that in engendering and reinforcing negative stereotypes and misunderstandings, ideologies and concepts play a big role. And so, for promoting interfaith understanding and inter-community dialogue, intellectual work can also be useful and important. There is a need to engage intellectually with various aspects of interfaith relations. Such academic work is no less important than personal interaction and friendships, provided this work is done in a constructive way and is not geared to condemn others or employed as an apologetic or defensive tactic to cover up one’s own faults.

Could you please reflect on the role of personal friendships and other such close relationships between individuals from different faith backgrounds in helping dissolve prejudices and bring people close together?

Such friendships and relationships are really extremely important, and probably nothing can take their place for promoting good relations between people from different religious backgrounds. When through friendship at the personal level two hearts meet and join and misunderstandings and prejudices dissolve, two individuals can become the means for purifying the minds and hearts of tens of other people.

Coming back to your childhood, could you share something about the way religion was understood and practised in your family then? How did you relate to this sort of religiosity?

A: When I was a child, in our family, religion was not thought of as being limited simply to some beliefs and rituals. Nor is this the case today. We regarded religion as a means for establishing a good relationship with God and a good relationship with God’s creatures. In childhood itself, we were taught that religion is not just a means to go to Paradise but that it also exhorts us to make efforts to try to make this world a heaven, a realm or abode of peace. In a hadith, a statement attributed to the Prophet, Paradise is called dar us-salam, or ‘House of Peace’. As children, we were taught that we should be peaceful people, in such a way that we can be worthy of or eligible for being settled in the ‘Home of Peace’ or Paradise.

What changes, if any, do you see in your way of understanding or practising religion over time?

A: For many people, religion is simply about performing some religious rituals, such as praying in a certain manner, fasting, going on pilgrimage and giving money in charity. These are mostly private actions, actions that concern an individual. But a basic purpose of religion, I have learnt, is to cultivate social or collective ethics. This means that one’s social dealings, one’s ethics, one’s etiquette, one’s manners, should be such that one becomes a model for others to emulate. One’s relations and dealings with other creatures of God should be so good, so positive, so constructive, that one becomes an example for others to follow, an inspiration as one plays out one’s own role in establishing a virtuous society.

The Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said, “The best amongst you are those who have the best manners and character”. He is also reported to have said, “I have been sent to perfect good character.” The summary or gist of Islam, of the Islamic way of life, is good character. This is what Islam actually teaches, but this fact has vanished from most people’s sight and minds.

Do you presently identify yourself with any particular religion? If yes, how do you think your understanding of this religion might be different from how it is conventionally understood?

A: I regard myself as a Muslim. I have strong faith in Islam. The teachings of Islam have guided me in the process of trying to becoming a better person. In terms of basic beliefs, my Islam is not different from that of most others. The only difference may be with regard to putting faith into practice and in understanding the true spirit of the religion, on the one hand, and with much what has come to be associated with the religion at the external level, on the other. Many people are unaware of this distinction, while several others do know of it but still choose to behave as if they don’t.

As far as the rest of my family is concerned, my basic religious beliefs are the same as theirs. But perhaps compared to some of them I have tried to study and understand religion in greater depth, and that is why it may be that religion has a somewhat greater impact on my thinking.At the intellectual level, the difference in my case is that I have tried to discover the spirit of religion as well as the social aspect of religion—that is to say, how religion can play a positive role in improving society and nurturing peace and harmony. Through my writings, I have tried to share what I was able to discover in this regard with others.

There are multiple religions, and each religion has its unique belief system and associated rituals. Each religion, as conventionally understood, makes its own unique truth claims. Given this, it is hardly surprising that competition, and even conflict, has been endemic between diverse groups of religionists.
In the light of this, how do you think people who claim to follow this or that religion can live together in harmony despite their religious differences, and, beyond that, can seek to learn and benefit from each other and their faiths? Could you please reflect on this in the light of your personal experience?

Differences among religions, in terms of their core doctrines and practices, simply cannot be eliminated, and nor should they be. These differences are part of their identity. The real question or challenge to work on then is not trying to eliminate these differences, which is an impossible task, but for adherents of different religions to learn to live together harmoniously in a plural society despite their differences.

The issue of peaceful coexistence is really very important. For this, our minds and hearts need to be so open and accommodative that even while witnessing and facing religious differences we can be firm in our commitment to live together in amity. And more than that, we can grow in our awareness that differences can actually be a blessing. Every religion, we must keep in mind, has beautiful ethical teachings through which a feeling of human oneness or, in fact, the interconnectedness of all beings (and not just human beings), can be fostered and strengthened. We should focus on promoting oneness at this ethical level even as we accept and respect differences between religions in terms of doctrines and rituals.

In the Quran (88:21-22), the Prophet Muhammad is told, “So, [O Prophet] exhort them: your task is only to exhort, you are not their keeper.” Our task is not to try to paint the whole world in our favourite colour, as it were. If someone tries to do this, it will lead only to devastation for humankind.

Instead of being seen as a problem, how do you think the fact of religious differences can be a blessing, a resource for learning from others and a means for one’s inner growth? If you have experienced this yourself in your life, could you please share some insights?

A: Religious differences are actually in accordance with God’s will and cosmic plan. In the Quran it says, “Had God pleased, He would have united you in one community” (16:93). From this we can understand that the colourful diversities of religion, culture, language, ethnicity and so on that exist in the world are an aspect of Nature’s abundant beauty. It is from this that beauty is brought forth in our social life. We can discern and learn from many beautiful things in other religions and other religious communities that can be wonderful practical examples for us to emulate.

The famous Egyptian Muslim reformer, Mufti Mohammad Abduh (1849-1905), after returning to Egypt from a visit to a European country, remarked that there he had seen Islam but no Muslims while in Egypt he saw Muslims but no Islam. This anecdote highlights the fact that goodness—which is true religion—has no religious label, that it is not the monopoly of any belief system or community, and that we can discern and benefit from the goodness in people from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds.

Over the years, you may have attended several interfaith conferences, seminars etc. What was your overall takeaway from such events? What practical benefit, if at all, do you think such events actually have in terms of promoting better relations between people who claim to follow different religions? Could you please share some suggestions you might haveto make such meetings more effective in promoting better inter-community relations?

Yes, I have participated in several such interfaith events. Mostly, I have to say, these sort of events are organised as formal, academic encounters, high on speeches and goody-goody talk but very low on practical planning, and even lower on follow-up. Still, such meetings are not without benefit. For instance, some years ago I was fortunate to be able to participate in an interfaith programme organised at the ashram of a Hindu spiritual leader. There, I not only met some Hindu sants but also got the opportunity to stay with them and converse and exchange views with them. This experience led me to grow in my appreciation and regard for Hindu gurus. The Quran (5:82) says , “…the nearest in affection to them are those who say, “We are Christians.” That is because there are priests and monks among them; and because they are free from pride.” I found this to be precisely the same in the case of numerous Hindu sadhus.

To promote better understanding, appreciation and regard among people of different religious backgrounds, here is an experiment that we really ought to make: A group of people from different religions should be brought together to live under the same roof for, say, three or four months or so. There should be no lectures about religion, no preaching, no speeches. Instead, each participant should simply try to lead their life according to the teachings of their religion. In addition, participants must eat together, sleep in the same rooms and spend time in each other’s company. Along with this, they must observe each other’s religious practices. Every day, at a certain appointed time, they should come together to pray for humankind—in fact, for all beings. They should hold one another’s hands and embrace each other.

I feel that someone who passes through this sort of experience will emerge as a completely transformed person and can become a very powerful means for promoting love and harmony between people from different religious backgrounds.

If you were asked to head an institute dedicated to promoting better relations and understanding among people from different faith backgrounds, what are some of the practical programmes that you might like to organize?

If I were to head such an institution, here are some of the things I might like to do:

• Arrange for groups of people from various religious backgrounds to visit places of worship of different religions. There, they would interact with worshipers and observe religious practices.
• Organize inter-community get-togethers to jointly participate in and celebrate festivals of different faith communities.
• Hold weekly or monthly meetings, where people from different religious backgrounds get together, taking turns to speak on different topics from the perspective of the religion they may identify with.
• Publish and make available modestly-priced books and booklets on universal fraternity and love and service to God’s creatures, drawing upon teachings from different religious traditions.
• Publish a magazine that focuses specifically on interfaith-related topics and themes.
• Encourage interaction between students and graduates of religious schools of different faith communities, including seminaries and madrasas, through programs that would bring them together.
• Build up a team that would be active on various social media on interfaith issues.
• Set up and maintain a Youtube channel that would host interviews with people from different religious backgrounds who are working for the interfaith cause.
• Maintain an interactive website that hosts material on interfaith issues.

There are many individuals and NGOs in India that are working on a range of social causes. But the number of individuals and organisations working for promoting interfaith understanding and inter-communal harmony is very limited. Why do you think this is the case?

One reason for this is that communities’ leaders—religious as well as other—are often driven by politics, while genuine interfaith harmony work can only be done if it is non-political.

There is another reason for the situation that you refer to: While engaging in interfaith work, one might have to face a lot of criticism and opposition from even one’s own community. So, many people who might otherwise have been interested in the issue might think, “Why should I unnecessarily take on this headache and invite trouble for myself?”

There are relatively few Indian Muslims, and even fewer Muslim ulema, who are actively engaged in promoting inter-community harmony and interfaith understanding. Why do you think this is the case?

One reason for this is that the ulema are not fully aware of the importance of this sort of work. This is because a very large section of them are not able to properly understand the demands of the times and of contemporary society. Related to this is the narrowness of their mindset, which has been shaped by certain interpretations of religion.

There are other factors, such as misinformation, misunderstanding, apprehensions and fears, that keep many among the ulema class back from interfaith work. In this, the supremacist and exclusivist political Fiqh that was developed in the medieval period, which many contemporary ulema are still deeply influenced by, must assume a big share of the blame. There is an urgent need to rethink and revise many aspects of this Fiqh today.

Finally, some really existential questions! What do you see as the purpose of human life, and how do you think working for better relations between people from diverse faith backgrounds might fit into this purpose?

To put it concisely, the purpose of human life, as I see it, is to establish and nurture a good relationship with God as well as a good relationship with God’s creatures. One must fulfil the rights of both. True religion guides us towards the fulfilment of the rights of both God and God’s creatures. Without establishing good relations with God’s creatures—and this includes adherents of religions other than the one we may identify with—we are not eligible to claim that we are a member of the family of God, because the Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said, ‘All creatures are [members of] the family of God’ (al-khalqoayalullah).