ISLAM - A Perspective (Introduction)

India is an ancient nation. It is a nation that has given a number of religions and philosophies to the world. It is a nation that has embraced other religions that have come from outside its fold too. But for certain unfortunate incidents that have transpired during the recent past, India has been practicing religious tolerance over the years. Apart from that, it is a pluralistic society that nurtured many languages, races and cultural traditions. 

America and the European nations turned pluralistic societies only during the last century. Till then they were not one. However, India has been a pluralistic society since ages. In such a pluralistic society, living together and dependent on other communities becomes necessary. Religious tolerance and harmony become basic requirements.  Knowing and understanding other religions’ beliefs, philosophies, methods of worship, cultural traditions, values, problems and respecting their feelings will lead to harmony.  

The best way to understand a religion or philosophy is to read the source texts in the language they were written. However, it may not be possible for everyone to do that. Hence, we should attempt to understand them through articles, books, translations of the source texts written by well known scholars of that religion. Only after that should we attempt to read books that critique a religion.  However, we tend to do it the other way round. Similarly, trying to understand a religion by the actions of a few individuals or groups will also lead us to a wrong understanding of that religion.

To understand a religion correctly, reading with an open mind is necessary. We need to remove all ideas and notions about that religion that we already have and read with the sole aim of understanding the Truth. Otherwise, we will tend to collect evidences for the ideas and notions that we already have without truly understanding the essence.  

I know that a lot of people are curious and interested in knowing about Islam. Many news items continue to appear in the media about Islam and Muslims. Mostly they are negative news. People come to conclusions about Islam and Muslims based on such news covering ISIS, Al-Queda, Boko Haram, various bomb blasts, attack on the twin towers in the US, Osama Bin Laden, Shia-Sunni conflicts, attack on news papers, intimidation of writers, Love Jihad etc. This undermines the relationship between communities.  

My intent is that this book must make people understand Islam and enable fostering communal harmony. There are a number of areas in Islam like basic tenets, beliefs, methods of worship, cultural traditions, ethics of living, Prophet, Koran, Women’s rights, forcible conversions that have been misunderstood. We shall see briefly yet lucidly about these areas in these series of articles.

Sri. Cho Ramaswamy, Editor Thuglak magazine, with all good intentions, has been stating that such series of articles should be published. He reiterated it in the recently concluded annual day celebrations of Thuglak as well. This series of articles is a result of such a request.

Dr. K V S Habib Mohamed

Chennai

May, 2016

Note: This is an English translation of the book written by Dr. Habib