Sunday, February 21, 2010

Interfaith dialogue


My first interfaith dialogue! There were a couple invites prior to this one; but the place is always too far, or I have something else to do. This one is a bit special, because four different religion is represented. Islam, Christian, Hinduism, and Sikhism. Kak Fi commented that it is rare to find the Sikh religion to be discussed as well. I'm eager to learn about other religion because of my neighbours really. Both of them, the one in Shah Alam or Danau Kota are avid Hinduist- if I can call it that. They both wake up at 5 and pray- I can tell by the bell sounds. For one they make me embarassed for not doing the tahajud prayer, and next it makes me plain curious to know about what they believe in.

The Hindu and Sikh religion really are quite universalist. They believe that any religion (according to these speakers) leads to the Truth. The hindu speaker, Dr Thilagawathy compares religion to different rivers, which eventually lead to the same sea. The Sikh speaker said it does not matter what the outer package, the inside is still the same. Bro Shah Kirit said he agrees, if, if the inside are really the same. He was referring the aqidah, I believe. Though the intention is good, I don't think we hold the same believe system with other religion. When one non-muslim professor commented on a Quranic ayah that said no other religion is accepted except Islam; Bro Shah Kirit simply said he is talking from an Islamic point of view and that we should not be ashamed of what we believe in. He also admits that his understanding of Islam might be limited but we can only try our best.

I think I would get a better understanding from reading. But interfaith dialogue is a good platform to understand others realistically, and not just from our own little assumption.

This was also my first time to witness people queing up to ask questions, and some were running for the microphone! Some were asking sincere questions and some were just emotional Muslims with good intentions. One asked to the Hindu speaker, 'how can you worship something that we can break just like that?' It reminds me of Prophet Ibrahim a.s. who asked the same thing to his people masyallah.

I come back realizing there are so many things I need to learn about Islam and doing da'wah. Boy, there is so little time to do so many!

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