The Meaning of Dialogue (al-hiwar) between Civilisations ---Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3
And
"Fight those who believe not in Allah and the Last Day, nor forbid what Allah
and His Messenger forbid nor follow the deen of truth among the People of the
Book until they pay the jizyah readily and subdued" [TMQ At-Taubah: 29].
And:
"He it is Who drove out those who disbelieve among the People of the Book from
their homes at the first gathering" [TMQ Al-Hashr: 2].
Thus they are
disbelievers (kuffar), and they are non-Muslims. It is not permitted to
designate them as Muslims. Islam linguistically means submission
(inqiyad) and in the Shari'ah technical terminology, it means the deen that
Allah subhanahu revealed upon Muhammad . If it is permitted to
designate Islam with its linguistic meanings upon the previous Prophets
(as) and upon those who believed and followed them before the mission
of Muhammad and before distortion (of their books), it is not
permitted to do that after his mission. So whoever does not believe in
him and his message is a kafir, and it is not allowed that he be called
Muslim or a believer (mu'min). He ta'ala said:
"And say to those given the Book and the illiterate (Arab pagans): 'Do you
submit yourselves (in Islam?' If they become Muslims, they are guided, and if they
turn away, your duty is only the conveyance. And Allah is Seer of His slaves"
[TMQ Al-Imran: 20]. And he said:
"By the One in whose hand is Muhammad's soul, none hears of
me of this Ummah, Jew or Christian, then dies without believing
in what I was sent with except he is of the denizens of the Fire."
And ibn Hibban extracted from the hadith of Anas that Caesar wrote tothe Messenger of Allah : 'I am a Muslim' and the Messenger of Allah
said when he read the letter:
"The enemy of Allah lied. He is not a Muslim while he is upon
Christianity."
Amr Musa, Secretary-General of the Arab League, made clear that he
does not believe that there is a civilisation better than (another)
civilisation, and from the meaning of his words is that the Islamic
civilisation is not preferable to the Capitalist, Hindu or Jewish civilisation
for he says: "We do not believe that there is a better civilisation" in the
exposition of his refutation of the Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi.
One of them attempted to use as evidence for accepting the other as
they are without restriction or condition, and without attempting to
pronounce judgments against him, the aayaat of Surat Al-Kahf that say: "Religious dialogue is the attempt of the individual encumbered with
the values, conventions, beliefs and previous creeds to discover the other
(of a different religion) - as he is - and understand him and crystallize a
philosophical formal view towards him without resorting to pronouncing
prejudiced value judgments against him…the supporters of religious
dialogue raised the motto of sincere intention. So he assumes the
divestment of conditions and goals except the desire to understand the
other and view him intellectually…The content of dialogue does not, in
principle, differ with the tale with which the Noble Qur'an brought in
Surat Al-Kahf (aayaat 32-42) about the dialogue between two men. Allah
gave one of them two gardens of grapes surrounded by palm trees and
with crops in the middle, rivers flowing therein; and Allah increased its
owner over the other in property and children. The tale reveals that the
dialogue took place between the two men without condition or
restriction, and the Qur'an brought it with its complete details; and
despite it's including the kufr of one of them in Allah, the other did not
interrupt the dialogue because of it. Likewise the Qur'an did not refrain
from mentioning the sayings of kufr, because in their totality they are
able to build and formulate the intellectual examination of the
personality disbelieving in Allah 'azza wa jalla…Religious dialogue differs
from comparative religion and religious competition even if these
concepts commingle in the literature. Comparative religion is a science.
meaning study of a religion in comparison with others upon the level of
the creed (‘’aqeedah), legislation and ritual worships, and its views about
man, the universe and life and the like, of assuming objectivity and the
possibility of eliminating prejudice. Whereas religious competition is a
process aiming to prove the superiority and distinction of one religion
over the other; a matter which is not of course aimed by religious
dialogue which a process of understanding only" (Husam Tammam,
researcher and journalist, Egypt: IslamOnline.net, under the title:
'Religious Dialogue: A Human Necessity or world Conspiracy').
These quotations are necessary to know what the advocates of the
idea of religious dialogue intend of this expression, which is their
technical terminology. The best of what guides us to the meaning of
this technical terminology is what they themselves say or write, since
the linguistic meaning does not benefit here. From all of these
quotations, it is possible to crystallize the meaning of this technical
terminology in the following:
Firstly: Equality and equivalence between religions and civilisations,
and non-preference between a religion and another or a civilisation and
another.
Secondly: Accepting the other as it is and discovering it without
pronouncing judgments against it, but rather understanding and
recognizing its views without restriction or condition.
Thirdly: The objective of dialogue between civilisations is interaction
to create an alternative superior civilisation through the means of seeking
to find out what is common and human; a matter that leads to the
advance and flourishing of civilisations, and spreading of peace. The
objective of dialogue between religions is to prevent Islam from entering
the arena of the struggle.
All these concepts completely contradict Islam. There is not a single
concept from these that has evidence or probable evidence. They are
not from Islam; rather they are all distortion (tamweeh) and deception,
and their danger against Islam is sure.
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