In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
Tolerance and Peaceful Coexistence
Her Excellency Ms. Christina Aus der Au, President of the German Protestant Church Day (GPCD)
His Excellency Mr. Thomas de Maizière, Interior Minister
Dear Honored Attendees,
May Allah's peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you all!
At the outset, I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Dr. Aus der Au and Mr. De Maizière, for inviting me to participate in this great celebration. I would like to thank, in particular, the honorable audience who are listening to this talk and will discuss with me the questions and quires that may arise. Moreover, I would like to extent my warm greetings for the organizers and participants of the GPCD this year and for those who have established and contributed to it over the past years.
Al-Azhar's participation in the celebration of the GPCD is an encouraging step on the path of interfaith dialogue for peace and acquaintance, and for promoting the culture of tolerance. It follows intensive dialogue rounds between Al-Azhar and major Western religious institutions. We have been meeting prominent international figures, including the Pop of the Vatican, the German Chancellor Merkel and the Interior Minister Mr. De Maizière who delivered a lecture on tolerance among religions at Al-Azhar University. We have seen good effect that encourages the intellectual activity between the East and the West.
As for my speech today, I would like to admit that it may be too concise to be fully satisfactory; it does not focus on one subject, but tackles various ones, each of which deserves a separate lecture.
The GPCD's celebration sheds the light on religion, its necessity, and utmost importance in human life. Religion protects people against deviation, devilish seduction, and following materialistic philosophies that only call for satisfying lusts, and selfishness. Moreover, it has been proven that religion is not a matter to be ignored by the scientific civilization or irreligious modernity, or a matter that went down in history or drew in museum displays, as a group of contemporary philosophers claim. The GPCD's celebration provides a new crucial evidence of the invalidity of these allegations. It proves that religion is the natural disposition on which Allah has originated humankind. Thus, it is not to be interpreted as a physical, psychological or social phenomenon as the theories about its origin claim, denying its real source, that is Allah.
During preparing my speech, I remembered I was a student at the Department of Islamic Philosophy, Al-Azhar University in the sixties of the last century. At the time, I studied the theory of “the law of three stages” in the ninth century by the well-known philosopher Auguste Comte. He affirmed that the human mental life has gone through three stages: theological, metaphysical and positive, through which the human mind reached absolute rationality. Thus, this theory abandons theology and metaphysics and adopts the new and last methodology of the positivist sciences and empiricism. In criticizing this theory, we studied that it was a distortion of reality and history as we still could see believers in religion in the 20th century among the European civilization’s scholars, medical scientists, doctors, philosophers, or writers.
Today, people are increasingly convinced that religiosity is an innate tendency rooted in the human nature and that this disposition will not go away from the life as long as humankind exists. Another lesson we learn from the thirty-sixth anniversary of the GPCD after five centuries of the establishment of the religious reform movement is that revival of religious feelings today emerges in the German capital. This country represents a leading model with regard to scientific renaissance and experimental sciences in Europe and the whole world as well. It is worth to mention that the German creative mind is mostly the planner and developer of highly-advanced industry and amazing technological development. It is fair to say that the most important lesson that many of those concerned with studies on modern conflicts between religion and science may not pay attention to is that this celebration is not only a sign of reconciliation between religion and science, but it is also an explicit scientific acknowledgment of religion and its importance in human life.
I think that humanity feels a dire need for religion, its teachings and morals nowadays. As the current civilization drudges all its intellectual potentials and mental activities for food and bread alone, Jesus warns us against taking this trend as the core philosophy of civilization or as a standard for human relationship between individuals and communities. Jesus says, “It is written: Man shall not live by bread alone." (Matthew: 4:4) It is an explicit and strong reference to the fact that humanity should not follow the policy of production, consumption, and domination of the vulnerable, even for one day, as such a life would in reality be a miserable and ugly form of death.
We—believers in Allah, the Creator— believe that His Wisdom and Mercy include everything and that all religions came for guiding humanity to know the good and urge them to do it and to warn against evils, be they explicit or implicit, and their consequences. We are sure that there is a Divine message to man rich with calls for peace, fraternity, and cooperation in doing good to build this globe, explore its secrets, and exchange its benefits among people. In addition, this message is carried by the Messengers and Prophets who conveyed it to humankind, starting from Prophets Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus the son of Mary, to the Last Prophet Muḩammad (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon them all). All of them call for the same thing, each approving the message of the antecedent and building upon his call and teachings. This explains the similarities of their teachings that seem to be identical. This should not be surprising as long as the source of religions is one and the same. The messages of religions must have the same purpose, destination, and direction.
Dear all,
The Divine religions are the first and foremost message of peace to humankind. I even think that it is a message of peace toward animals, plants, and the entire universe. We should know that Islam forbids the Muslims from holding weapons in the face of others except in one case: defending themselves, their lands, and their homelands against aggression. It has never occurred before that Muslims fought others to force them to accept Islam. However, Islam deals with non-Muslims, including Christians and Jews, in a brotherly way. The Holy Qur᾿ān has many explicit verses, whose details are beyond the scope of this address, stating that the relationship between the Muslims and other peaceful people, whatever their religion or doctrine may be, is that of goodness and fairness. It is enough here to state that Prophet Muḩammad (pbuh) presents Islam as the last Divine message and religion of Allah and acknowledges that the origin of religions in all messages is one and the same. Based on this fact, the Qur᾿ān mentions the Torah and the Bible in a respectful way and admits their strong effect in guiding people to the straight path. Thus, Allah, in the Holy Qur᾿ān, describes the Torah and the Bible as “guidance and light.” In addition, the Holy Qur᾿ān describes itself as the book which authenticates the past Scriptures, the Bible (Torah and Gospel). Islam's relation with all the Divine religions is intrinsic. This is clear in the relationship between Muslims and Christians. Christians, according to the Qur᾿ān, are the closest of all people to Muslims. The relationship between the followers of both religions is that of affection, brotherhood, and compassion."
It is my pleasure to say that the origins of our religious reliable sources, past and present, of fatwa and legislation, describe the Christians with four qualities in addition to a fifth wonderful one. These four qualities prove the fact that they are the most enduring people when seditions prevail, the fastest people to heal from disasters and crises, the fastest people to regain determination and firmness, and the best people to deal kindly with the orphans, the poor, and the vulnerable. Their fifth wonderful quality is that they do justice to the oppressed and defend the vulnerable against those who unjustly intend to humiliate them. This fair testimony is part of the Muslim studies and education instructed to our students as found in one of our most authentic books, after the Holy Qur᾿ān, which is Ṣāḩīḩ Muslim. This is what Muslims from Marrakesh in Morocco to Jakarta in Indonesia study.
In addition, the Muslim scholars do not forget that Christianity protected and rescued early Muslims from the oppression of paganism and their attempts to eliminate them and their Islam. Christianity was indeed the first protector of Islam. When harm was intensified against vulnerable Muslims who believed in Prophet Muḩammad (pbuh), they could not find refuge from injustice. The Prophet (pbuh) told them, “Travel to Abyssinia as its king does not tolerate injustice.” Thus, the early Muslims resorted to that Christian country and its king in two consecutive waves of migrations including men, women, and children. With the Christian King, the Negus, they found protection, freedom, security, and peace. The Prophet (pbuh) only trusted the Christian Abyssinia to protect his followers who were the backbone of his message at that time, because he was sure that both religions were like brothers in harmony with each other against their common enemy represented in paganism, which chased Islam and tried to eliminate it in its early days.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
This is the image of Islam in its openness towards other Divine religions. The history of Muslims testifies that their civilization kept fraternity with the followers of other religions. It has always dealt with them as per the Sharia rule: “They have rights and duties equal to ours.” This rule affirms that non-Muslims have the right to adhere to their religions and faiths and to practice their own religious rites freely. It assures the protection of churches, places of worships, and social and religious customs.
This does not necessarily mean that the way with which the Islamic community deals with non-Muslims is an angelic one, free of mistakes and faults, or that no tensions or deviations ever occurred on the part of Muslim rulers and citizens. However, such tensions and deviations, whether few or many, are an exception from which no multi-religious, multi-ethnic, or multi-doctrine community is free.
Many historians of the West write about such a spirit of tolerance in dealing with non-Muslims in Muslim communities. For example, the Swiss German Professor Adam Metz writes his in-depth work about the Islamic civilization in the 14th century AH. As postgraduate students, we have studied this work in its Arabic version. It left a deep impression on us about the fairness of the German historians regarding Islam and their objectivity in presenting the history of Islam. According to Professor Metz, Christians living in Muslim communities are citizens who have the same rights as a Muslim citizen, except in occupying some religious positions which required the knowledge of Sharia. I think you agree with me that history testifies that no war broke out between Muslims and Christians in the East. This is due to a pure religious cause that the Islamic Sharia commands the Muslim rulers to protect the non-Muslims and assure their security and safety. It would not be acceptable that the Muslim army protect Christian citizens and then launches or participates in wars against them.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I do not need to remind you that Islam is entirely free from such terrorist practices committed in its name. Such practices, sorrowfully, defame Islam in the East and the West. They present it as a brutal religion thirsty for blood, whose followers are barbarian and savage. Some broadcasting and media agencies, written or televised, record such horrible actions in all its details and broadcast them to instill this bad image in the minds of people, especially the young.
I would like to take the opportunity of participating in this international religious celebration to inform all the peoples around the world that such condemnable crimes are far from Islam and the Muslims. I would like to invite all clergymen and intellectuals worldwide to stand united against terrorism and consider it a joint enemy and have mutual responsibility to face it. I also invite all clergymen in the West to participate in correcting the wrong image the West keeps regarding Islam and the Muslims.
As you see, Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, the largest religious Muslim institute worldwide, is knocking at the doors of the largest religious institutions in the West, not really to build bridges of fraternity and goodwill, but rather to restore such already-existing bridges and consolidate them. It aims to unify religions against such danger and to remind peoples that terrorism is an act by devils, not by believers in the Lord and His justice, reckoning and punishment.
I wonder how people believe that Islam is the religion of terrorism, even though the vast majority of its victims are Muslim men, women, children, soldiers, and safe people in their homes, roads, means of transportation, etc. It is time for church bells in the West to coincide with mosques' minarets in the East declaring that there is no place for exploiting religions and abusing the poor, the destitute, the miserable, women or children who lose their bloods, bodies, and families in wars with which they have no hand. They suffer distresses resulting from the shortcoming of those who are able to stop such wars, the case which devastates our Arab world.
Young people, the future and strength of the present, should play their role in spreading the culture of peace, goodwill, and communication. They should also deconstruct the culture of hatred, overthrowing civilizations' isolation walls made for authoritarian purposes and narrow interests. They should also establish the bridges of understanding and common dialogue for achieving the human life worthy of the 21st century.
Personally, I am counting on you, young people, in making a future free of wars suffered by my generation in the past and present centuries. I, for example, was born one year in the aftermath of the end of World War II. Sorrowfully, ten years later, I testified the tripartite aggression against Egypt. I cannot blot out the memories and imagination of such a horrific wartime. After another ten years, the six-day war broke out creating many crises, bottlenecks, wars, and economic problems. The war of 1973 regained confidence, rehabilitation and a sense of victory for the young Arabs. Sorrowfully, soon we all suffered terrorism that has not stopped until this moment. In addition, there are the wars raging in our Arab world whose flames have not abated until this moment.
We may wonder the impression of my generation in their seventies about their readings on international peace and the human right to life, let alone other rights of security, decent life, justice, and equality. We keep many human rights and international charters by heart but they are of no avail in realities!
To conclude these painful reflections fraught with sorrows and hopes, there will be no solution to the crisis of the contemporary world and tragedies almost reminiscent of the chaos of the Middle Ages except through the Divine teachings that you celebrate today. They assure the world that religion is an absolute necessity without which achieving fraternity, justice, or equality would be impossible.
Thank you for listening!
As-Salāmu ‛Alaykum wa Raḩmatu Allahi wa Barakatuh
Al-Azhar Headquarter
Sha‛bān 1437 AH/May 2017
Professor Ahmad At-Tayyeb
Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar