The Makkah Conference on Inter-Faith Dialogue:
Stirrings of a New
Beginning?
Yoginder Sikand
The recently concluded three-day international
conference on
interfaith dialogue organised by the Muslim World
League at Makkah
marks a major step towards promoting bridges of
dialogue and
understanding between Muslims and people of other
faiths. This comes
at a time of mounting Islamophobia the world over,
when negative
stereotyping of Muslims and their faith has become
deeply ingrained in
large sections of the international media and also in
policy-making
circles in many countries. The organizers of the
Makkah conference
undoubtedly felt it crucial to promote the notion of
interfaith
dialogue in order to address this issue of
Islam-bashing, and it is to
be hoped that they also felt it urgent to combat
similar negative
stereotyping of other faiths and their followers that
are equally
widely prevalent among many Muslims themselves.
Clearly, however, there are limits to the sort of
progress on the
inter-faith dialogue front that this officially
Saudi-sponsored event
can inspire. For one thing, there were, presumably, no
non-Muslim
participants in the conference, for it was held in the
city of Makkah,
where only Muslims are allowed to enter. Surely,
genuine dialogue
cannot be promoted without the presence of a dialogue
partner! The
absence of non-Muslim dialogue partners in the
conference meant that,
for practical purposes, the discussions that ensued
were all part of a
monologue by a select group of Muslims speaking to and
among
themselves. How, one must ask, does this advance the
cause of
inter-faith dialogue in practical, as opposed to
rhetorical, terms?
Secondly, the fact that the conference was held by an
organization
that is, for all practical purposes, under the aegis
of the Saudi
King, whose regime represents the sternly literalist
and exclusivist
Wahhabi understanding of Islam (and one that is
perfectly comfortable
with monarchy and Western imperialist domination, both
presumably not
quite Islamic phenomena) surely limits the sort of
progress in
improving inter-faith relations that the conference
was ostensibly
intended to promote. Since its very inception, Saudi
Wahhabism has
been, and continues to be, fiercely intolerant not
just of religions
other than Islam, but also of other understandings and
expressions of
Islam, such as Shi'ism and Sufism. How, then, can one
expect major
positive achievements to emerge on the inter-faith
front from an
initiative that is probably the brainchild of the
repressive and
totalitarian Saudi regime, which has had such a poor
record when it
comes to inter-faith and even intra-Muslim sectarian
relations?
As is evident from newspaper reporting about the
event, the Makkah
conference proceeded on much the same lines as have
umpteen other such
inter-faith dialogue conferences that have been held
before it
elsewhere, by Muslims as well as others. What
typically happens in
such conferences is that speaker after speaker extols
the virtues of
his or her own faith as he or she interprets it, and
issues passionate
calls for peace and inter-community solidarity.
Rarely, if ever, is
their any discussion of practical steps to be
undertaken once the
conference is over, unless, of course, it is to decide
on yet another
conference on the same theme, but this time in another
exotic or
interesting location. Rarely, too, is their any
admission of the
undeniable fact that religion—all religions—can and
have been
interpreted in various diverse ways, some of them in
ways that seek to
justify hatred of and uncalled for violence towards
people of other
faiths. At least that has been my experience of almost
all the
inter-faith dialogue conferences—and these have been
many—that I have
attended in the last twenty years in India and
elsewhere. And, judging
from the reports emerging in the press, this is,
broadly, what the
participants in the Makkah inter-faith dialogue
conference have also
done.
Undeniably, inter-faith dialogue conferences of this
sort are
important, and one cannot simply dismiss them simply
because they do
not produce any immediate tangible results. They are
significant in
that they signify efforts on the part of key religious
leaders (or
people who are projected as such 'leaders') to fashion
different
understandings of their own religions insofar as they
relate to people
of other faiths, implicitly or explicitly critiquing
exclusivist
understandings of their religion by some elements that
are used to
foment hatred and violence against others. Surely that
is no mean
achievement, for such conferences, attended by
presumably senior
religious spokesmen, do send out powerful messages
that can impact on
how their 'ordinary' co-religionists relate to people
of other faiths.
Yet, and this must be recognized, such efforts are
simply not enough.
They cannot succeed on their own. They need to be
accompanied by
serious mobilization work at the 'grassroots' level if
they are to
impact on people on a large scale. Often, it is not
simply prejudice
or ignorance about other faiths that causes
inter-community conflict,
and so such conflict cannot be done away with simply
by dialogue
between religious leaders talking about the concept of
peace in their
own religions. Surely, there are often serious
economic and political
factors at work that cause friction and conflict
between communities.
Hence, these conflicts cannot be said to be a result
of religious
misunderstandings alone and cannot be solved simply by
trying to
fashion new theologies of peace. Take, for instance,
the conflict over
Palestine. It cannot be the contention of anyone other
than the most
naïve that the issue is entirely religious and that it
can be solved
simply by getting Jewish rabbis and Muslim maulvis to
sit together and
discuss the merits of their respective faiths and
thereby discover
theological resources within their religious
traditions that can prove
more accommodative of people of other faiths. While
such inter-faith
dialogue is certainly important, obviously the problem
has also to be
tackled at the political and economic level, and if
these are ignored
the problem can only further fester.
Religion teaches about claims to ultimate truths, and
for those who
ardently believe in them these are non-negotiable, for
they believe
that their own religions are the best or most true or
even represent
the absolute truth. Hence, there are limits to the
sort of consensus
that can be reached between people of different faiths
on religious
matters through inter-faith dialogue efforts. Further,
often such
efforts are extremely elitist, limited only to
religious leaders or
self-appointed leaders discussing theological niceties
among
themselves, and not involving the masses in any way.
Surely a more
productive approach to inter-faith dialogue is to move
beyond (while
also including) discussions at the theological level
to promote what
has been called 'the dialogue of social action'—where
people of
different faiths and ideologies (not just 'religious
specialists', but
'laymen' too) , each with their own sources of
inspiration, whether
religious or otherwise, come together to work in
solidarity on issues
of common concern, be it the struggle against
imperialism or
capitalist depredation, the nuclear threat, gender
discrimination, the
killing of innocents in the name of religion and so
on. In this way,
they can put their faith into action, instead of
leaving it confined
merely to words, as generally happens at inter-faith
dialogue
conferences. Through this sort of practical action for
common purposes
they can reach out to people of other faiths in a far
more direct and
meaningful manner, for actions, obviously, speak
louder than words.
Intra-faith dialogue is as crucial as inter-faith
dialogue. While
Protestant and Catholic Christians no longer kill each
other (other
than, and that too rapidly decreasingly, in Northern
Ireland), now
having been brought together by the ecumenical
Christian movement, and
while Shiavite and Vaishnavite Hindus have long
forgotten their
centuries' old enmities, intra-Muslim sectarian
conflicts still rage,
often violently. In fact, the Saudi Wahhabi regime,
which, ironically,
has sponsored the Makkah conference through the Muslim
World League,
has for long been one of the major backers of such
intra-Muslim
conflicts. Muslim scholars, such as those who
assembled at the Makkah
conference, need to seriously ponder on the issue of
promoting
ecumenism between the different Muslim sects. Surely,
if they cannot
dialogue among themselves, how can it be expected that
they can do so
sincerely and effectively with non-Muslims? How will
their claims to
be committed to dialogue be taken seriously by others
if they remain
willing to sincerely dialogue among fellow Muslims who
follow a
different school of thought?
In the past, and still today, efforts to promote
Muslim unity and
solidarity, in line with Quranic commandments, have
sundered on the
hard rock of sectarianism. Many Muslim organizations
and movements and
almost all Muslim madrasas or seminaries are based on
one or the other
sectarian identity, reflecting the belief that this
particular
sectarian understanding of Islam is the only true one,
the rest being
mistaken, wrong or, worse still, actually 'un-Islamic'
or
'anti-Islamic'. Because of this, it has often proved
(and this remains
largely the case even today) impossible for Muslims of
different sects
to work together for common purposes.
The Makkah conference on inter-faith dialogue thus is
a blessing and a
wonderful development, but, at the same time, it can
be said to be
only the first step towards a larger project that
needs to be much
more democratic, in terms of involving people of other
faiths, people
other than religious specialists (real or
self-appointed), and more
inclusive, in terms of going beyond mere statements
and religious
claims to work on practical projects and issues on
which people of
different faiths can work together and to also
seriously consider the
issue of intra-Muslim dialogue between the different
Muslim sects.
When seen along with similar efforts on the part of
influential
sections of the Indian ulema in recent months, who
have been
organising meetings across the country denouncing all
forms of
terrorism and lending support to inter-community
solidarity, it
appears that Muslim religious leaders in many parts of
the world are
waking up to the urgent need to take inter-faith
dialogue much more
seriously than they have before. At a time when there
is much talk of
an impending 'clash of civilisations', with Islam and
Muslims being
projected as principal actors in this drama of cosmic
dimensions,
surely the Makkah conference is no mean achievement.
It might, for all
we know, represent the stirrings of a new beginning.
Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye
Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye
The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping
The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping
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