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How to dialogue God
Azly Rahman | Aug 11, 08 2:11pm


Must religious dialogue be painful? Must it be greeted with hostility? Or is it a moot question - that the answer lies in our education system’s failure, decades ago?
MCPX

chinese new year 310108 prayerI have faith that we will one day be ready to appreciate interfaith dialogue. Same too for philosophical discussions and scientific debates. My experience conducting interfaith dialogues every semester in American classrooms gives me the assurance that we will be ready.

It would be good to know that eventually our corridors of academia are filled with passionate discussions on the self, the universe, God, and fate of humanity.

The core of each religious foundation is there for us to explore and to learn from. We need to escape from being trapped in the particular and liberate ourselves into explorers of the universal.

Of course this will take time given the nature of class and caste system we are in; developments that have impacted upon our consciousness. But evolve we must, if we are to see a progressive country emerging out of these ruins of communal politics, immorality of modern capitalism, and persistent religious misunderstandings. Ignorance is the greatest enemy of knowledge, as the sage Socrates once said.

What is interfaith dialogue?

hajj pilgrimage haji pilgrimage 040107 prayerThe aborted Bar Council forum was a good example how we will continue to approach inter-faith dialogue. There is vision in chaos, creation in destruction, and opportunities in threats. Educators of peace and social justice must not give up.

In a country with a Centre for Civilisational Dialogue in Universiti Malaya, and in a country wanting to be known as a "moderate country with a Muslim majority", we are seeing contradictions. It’ll get uglier if we fail to reflect upon the means and methods of religious dialogue.

We do not know much what each one of us believes in and what are the rituals and practices of our neighbours. We do not know what scripture they read, let alone the meaning of the prayers, the doa, zikir, the pujas, and the mantras. We lack the knowledge of the fundamentals. This is understandable - fear governs our consciousness and directs our actions and ultimately reproduces itself inter-generationally. Religion is a "sensitive" issue, they say - which needs desensitisation, I would contend.

Back to the Bar Council forum protests. It is a misrepresentation of what Muslims are and a reflection of how we have approached not only dialogue on religion but also on other "sensitive issues" as well. In this environment and in this regime where exploitation of issues are orchestrated by opportunists at the expense of peaceful dialogue, we will always be at the losing end of education for critical consciousness and for peace.

Humanism and rationalism

We must go back to the drawing board of our approach to teaching religion in terms of curricular design and how to juxtapose or even infuse it with core ideas of humanism and rationalism. This will take another few decades given the complexity of our society and its present evolution of “half-bakedness” of hypermodernity.

Here in the United States, I have just finished teaching two summer classes on 'Religions of the World' and 'Introduction to Religion' in a college where I have also been asked, for the last three years, to teach 'Islamic Scriptures'.

sikh prayer 040108 02I find it liberating to conduct classes after classes in which my students not only are American and foreign-born Muslims but also Jews, Christians, Catholic, Buddhists, Hindus, Atheists, Agnostics, and even Pagans. At the end of each semester, they have a different perception of each other - more in-depth understanding of what could have remained antagonistic. We read the Quran and the Hadiths and look at the scriptures from a hermeneutic perspective - situate it in the present and projecting it into the future.

Most often, our discussions on jihad evolved into a reflection on the struggles for the human self to explore suffering, violence, and liberation in all religious traditions. It includes passionate discussions on media representation of the concept.

I often wonder if what I am doing is possible in Malaysia but I certainly have the confidence and hope that given the most peaceful way to approach it, a lot can be gained. Essentially religious dialogue need not be painful.

It ought to help foster deep understanding and dispel misconception of ANY religion. It ought to make us become deeply religious and to learn to explore what others believe, to respect them, to learn from the universal themes of spirituality, and ultimately to contemplate our existence within the context of the struggle between Good and Evil and to evolve as more ethical and rational beings - so that we may participate better as political and social beings..

Major scriptures

mawi concert 1 in kota bharu 041005 woman prayerI believe we need to revamp undergraduate foundation courses in our public and private to include one that teaches the classics of the thoughts of the Eastern and Western tradition and the scriptures of the major religions.

But then again, our university students are not even allowed to be involved in politics and to engage freely in public forum on political matters – how might this be possible with interfaith dialogue then?

We have a long walk to mental freedom and to a philosophical understanding of Islam and other religions. Unfortunately we are now known as people who are good at disrupting dialogues. I hope this perception will change.

But then again, education is about hope, peace, empathy, intelligence, and liberation - these we must use as a basis for a new design once we see major restructuring efforts under way undertaken by perhaps a new political, social, and educational arrangement.

Let us look at possibilities in interfaith dialogue. Let education for peace and justice do that.

Alah, xkan budak PA sume rajin...
xde lebih nyer kami nie, macam hangpa gak...
xperlu beza2 kan k...

Budak Pa wrote:Yup, nie pandangan personal...
xpenah bincang pun dgn sume dak2 PA apa nak balas...
tp ape yg aku nak maksudkan,
jgn lah anggap dak2 PA ni sume leh jawab solan macam kool tye tu,
kami sama je blaja mcm anda semua,
aktiviti luar pun cam hgpa gak,
cuma blaja subjek agama lah,
tu pun menyentuh bab2 basic,
cam blaja sek men dulu,
xde beza,
so,
aku yang blaja kt kelas PA IPTB ni,
kalo yg blaja d dlm ni je,
payah lah nak jadi ust2 mcm kt luar sana,
mybe kami perlukan pendedahan yg banyak lg,
dgn inisiatif sendiri,
aku baca2 kt forum ni,
tgk korg banding2kan kami,
sentiasa menunjukkan kami terdedah dgn kesalahan,
x sesuai lah aku rasa,
kami ni manusia biasa gak,
x lari lah dari sume tu,
ni personal opinion je,
bukan pandangan sume dak PA
wassalam...

kubang s wrote:semoga insan yang membaca artikel ini mengerti apa yang ingin saya sampaikan............
memang mudah untuk kita belajar mengenai agama tetapi pernahkah kita terpikir adakah ia bertepatan dengan al quran dan hadis dan qias dan ijma` ulamak???????
pandai2 la mencari sumber ilmu agam yang betul pentingkan ilmu tauhid feiqh dan tasauf.jgn bercakap jika tidak pandai.....jgn ikut orang je.org masuk lubang biawak pun masuk........yg penting kesederhanaan dlm semua aspek.......
ingat taktik org kafir ialah meracuni fikrah umat islam......
yang haram tetap haram xkan jd halal melainkan terdesak nk mati je...yag halal tetap halal...........
bersama menuju ke arah kejayaan bersama................
ingat kool....saya doakan kesejahteraan anda jika perlu untuk islam...jika tidak saya doakan agar diberi hidayah dan jika tidak terpulanglah kepada Allah............setiap apa yang kita buat org lain marah...tanggunglah azab melainkan org itu meredhainya.........dosa dengan Allah insyaallah Allah ampunkan......dosa dengan manusia siapa tahu............
renung2kan dan selamat beramal............
faqir ilmie