By

Prof. Dr. Mahmoud Hamdy Zaqzouq

President of Al-Azhar Center for Dialogue

Edited by

Dr. Kamal Boraiqa Abdelsalam Hassan

Al-Azhar Magazine (Dhul-Hijjah, 1440 A.H. August, 2019.)

     In view of these sever crises which affect our contemporary life, there is no escape except in coexistence. As a matter of fact peaceful coexistence between nations and peoples in our age of globalization is no longer an option which could be rejected. Coexistence has become a life necessity. Peoples can no longer live in isolation from each other, but have to live in a peaceful way with each other. No nation of the world can today completely isolate itself from today’s events and changes.

     Everything which happens in our world is directly transmitted through life broadcasting or through the Internet to every place in the world and has undoubtedly its direct or indirect consequences.

     In today’s world we have therefore to live together. In order that this coexistence should be real and fruitful for all parties, it has to be established as a solid foundation. This necessarily means that the availability of two important matters: first the necessity of acknowledging the human rights of man; and second the necessity of mutual trust among all parties. It is clear that this second necessity is a consequence of the first one. Trust will only exist when there is acknowledgement of and request for general human rights, and this not only on the theoretical level, but on the practical level as well.

     We should not ignore the fact that the trust factor between the concerned parties in our contemporary world lacks the necessary solid foundation because of the existing double standards by thinking narrow private interests more important than the basic human criteria. Hence we must make effective efforts in order to build trust among the concerned peoples so that they may not live in fear of their neighbors or suspect them unnecessarily.

     Fruitful coexistence among people will not be achieved automatically if the two necessary factors of acknowledged human rights and of trust between the concerned parties do exist. The aim is that coexistence should be positive and fruitful and not neutral or negative.

     This aim will not be realized unless coexistence is linked to solidarity, which is another necessary aspect of real coexistence among nations and peoples. Without this solidarity it will not be possible to overcome many of the crises that sweep our contemporary world whether these are man-made crises or natural ones.

     Among the Islamic traditional comments regarding this fact is the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in which he depicts humanity in a symbolic way as being on board a ship that is sailing in the middle of the sea, with some of them are in its lower deck and some of them in its upper (deck). Those who are in the lower deck, whenever they need water, have to go up to the upper deck to get it. But eventually they get annoyed and impatient as a result of this and therefore decide to make a hole in the bottom of the ship from which to get water directly. This is of course a dangerous idea and exposes the ship to destruction and all its passengers to drowning. The Prophet advises those who live in the upper part to help those in the lower part and to cooperate with them, so that they may prevent them to damage the ship and to drown all its passengers.

     The hole mentioned in this hadith may remind us today of the Ozone Hole and other problems which threaten the world we live in. International joint efforts alone can save our world from destruction that endangers its existence and continuation.

     The responsibility to save the world demands joint cooperation and no party in this world may claim not to be responsible for it, since the world is the place where we all live. Saving the ship of the world from destruction is therefore the responsibility of all of us.

     As we are all looking for peace and its requirements, we should not overlook the obstacles that could hinder these efforts. Terrorism is a worldwide phenomenon dating back to ancient times and not at all related to the religion of Islam. The Muslims of our age have suffered under terrorism more than others, and their victims of terrorism outnumber its victims in any other place in the world. The ex-American president Obama pointed out this fact in one of his speeches and emphasized the dangers of calling for burning the Qur’an.

     If some extremist organizations, that claim falsely to be Islamic, carry out terroristic operations this does of course not mean that the rest of the billion and half Muslims in the world, who moreover are themselves targeted, could be called to responsible for this. Such wrong assumptions have unfortunately led to considering every Muslim a terrorist until he is proven innocent. Islam as a religion cannot be called to be responsible for the foolish conduct on part of some of his followers, exactly as Christianity is not responsible for the wrong behavior of some of its followers. Invalid generalizations and false accusations of this kind are grave mistakes.