http://thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/malaysian-muslims-should-follow-the-prophets-lead-in-religious-harmony/351843
January 10, 2010 Marina Mahathir Malaysian Muslims Should Follow the Prophet's Lead in Religious Harmony Muslims and Christians together constitute over 50 percent of the world population and if they live in peace, we will be halfway to world peace. One small step that we can take toward fostering Muslim-Christian harmony is to tell and retell positive stories and abstain from mutual demonization. In this article, I propose to remind both Muslims and Christians about a promise that Muhammad made to Christians. The knowledge of this promise can have enormous impact on Muslim conduct toward Christians. Muslims generally respect the precedent of their prophet and try to practice it in their lives. In A.D. 628, a delegation from St. Catherine's Monastery came to Muhammad and requested his protection. He responded by granting them a charter of rights, which I reproduce below in its entirety. St. Catherine's is located at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt and is the world's oldest monastery. It possesses a huge collection of Christian manuscripts, second only to the Vatican, and is a world heritage site. It also boasts the oldest collection of Christian icons. It is a treasure house of Christian history that has remained safe for 1,400 years under Muslim protection. The Promise to St. Catherine: "This is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them. "Verily I, the servants, the helpers and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by God! I hold out against anything that displeases them. "No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims' houses. "Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God's covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate. "No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight. The Muslims are to fight for them. If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray. Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants. "No one of the nation [Muslims] is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day," the end of the world. The first and the final sentence of the charter are critical. They make the promise eternal and universal. The prophet asserts that Muslims are with Christians near and far, straightaway rejecting any future attempts to limit the promise to St. Catherine alone. By ordering Muslims to obey it until Judgment Day, the charter again undermines any future attempts to revoke the privileges. These rights are inalienable. Muhammad declared Christians, all of them, as his allies and he equated ill treatment of Christians with violating God's covenant. The document is not a modern human rights treaty, but even though it was penned in the seventh century it clearly protects the right to property, freedom of religion, freedom of work and security of the person. I know most readers must be thinking, so what? Well the answer is simple. Those who seek to foster discord among Muslims and Christians focus on issues that divide and emphasize areas of conflict. But when resources such as Muhammad's promise to Christians are invoked and highlighted it builds bridges. It inspires Muslims to rise above communal intolerance and engenders goodwill in Christians who might be nursing fear of Islam or Muslims. When I look at Islamic sources, I find in them unprecedented examples of religious tolerance and inclusiveness. They make me want to become a better person. I think the capacity to seek good and do good inheres in all of us. When we subdue this predisposition towards the good, we deny our fundamental humanity. As the holiday season gives way to a new year, I hope all of us can find time to look for something positive and worthy of appreciation in the values, cultures and histories of other peoples. Now, when that delegation from St. Catherine's came to meet the Prophet, I suppose it's fair to assume that they spoke Arabic to one another. And when they were conversing, surely the word "God" must have come up. As in "May God be with you" and such like. What word did the prophet use for "God" I wonder? And what did the Catherinians use in return? For monotheists like them, was there a "your God" and "my God" type of situation, or did they understand that they were both talking about the same one? While some idiots are mourning over the "loss" of the word "Allah" and therefore basically telling the world that they are people easily confused by nomenclature, and others are predicting riots over what is basically a copyright issue, let me define what I think a confident Muslim should be: 1. A confident Muslim is unfazed by the issue of God's name. God speaks to all of humankind in the Koran and never said that only Muslims could call him Allah. 2. A confident Muslim has 99 names to choose from to describe that One God. (My favorites are Ar-Rahman , the all-compassionate, and Ar-Rahim , the all-merciful.) 3. A confident Muslim never gets confused over what is their religion and what is other people's. For instance, a Muslim should know exactly what the first chapter of the Koran is. And it's not the Lord's Prayer. 4. A confident Muslim will not walk into a church, hear a liturgy in Malay or Arabic where they use the word "Allah" and then think they are in a mosque. A Muslim should know the difference. 5. A confident Muslim is generous, inclusive and doesn't think that his or her brethren is made exclusive through the use of a single language. The Muslim should be well aware that in the Middle East, all services of ANY religion are in Arabic because that's what they all speak. 6. A confident Muslim knows the basis of their faith is the Five Pillars of Islam and will not be shaken just because other people call God by the same name. 7. A Muslim believes in One God. Therefore it makes sense that other people should call God by the same name because there is no other God. So I would ask those people demonstrating against the Malaysian High Court decision, have you no pride? Are you saying you're easily confused? And before anyone says I have no qualifications to say these things, read what Dr. Asri Zainal Abidin (who does have qualifications no matter what the Religious Affairs Department says) has written about this very subject. And here's something interesting. In 2007, the Perlis State Religious Council, which is a large body filled with people very learned in Islamic religious knowledge, discussed the question of the use of "Allah" by non-Muslims. Their unanimous decision? They issued a fatwa to say that there was absolutely nothing wrong with non-Muslims using it at all. Are we now going to excommunicate the whole of Perlis? Marina Mahathir, the daughter of former Malaysian Premier Mahathir Mohamad , blogs at rantingsbymm.blogspot.com . Asia Sentinel
