Love and tolerance: Essence of religious teachings
“If you are emotionally attached to your creed, caste, religion, political leanings to the point that truth and justice become secondary considerations, your education is useless, your exposure is useless; If you cannot reason beyond petty sentiments, you are a liability to the mankind”.
—Dr Chuba Okadigbo
FAITH is purely a matter of chance. Most of the people around the world are followers of particular religions by birth. Conversion to other religion in most of the cases is accidental or circumstantial.
If that be the case, people can’t be judged as good or bad, righteous or evildoers, etc on the basis of their religion. We find good and bad people among the followers of every sect, religion and ideology.
To like or dislike someone on the basis of religion is, therefore, sign of ignorance, bigotry, intolerance and narrow mindedness.
According to the teachings of Islam, it is not the colour, caste or creed, but conduct and righteousness (Taqwa) that make a person better than others.
In our country it has become a common practice, especially among the self-proclaimed champions of Islam to malign and blackmail their opponents by labelling them as sacrilegious or blasphemous.
Owing to the exploitation of religious sentiments of Muslims, particularly of Pakistan and Afghanistan, since the beginning of Afghan War in 1979, which coincided with Iranian Revolution, religious intolerance and bigotry have reached a level, where one can’t afford to have rational approach to religious beliefs, practices and rituals without taking the risk of being declared a “Kafir”.
When we were college students from 1969 to 1973, there were a sizable number of students as well as the teachers, who were known as progressive because of their unconventional approach to religion.
Even the students who belonged to typically religious and traditional families and social environment, like me, questioned the religious practices and social norms, they considered to be irrational and contrary to the true spirit of Islam and other major religions.
In addition to the inquisitiveness, study of subjects like philosophy, psychology and English literature, company of enlightened friends and teachers, contributed to develop our moderate outlook to life and religion.
Despite their unconventional approach to religious practices and rituals, most of the progressive students and teachers were better practising Muslims than those who became extremists due to their affiliation with the student wings of politico-religious parties.
Generally, the progressive students and teachers didn’t have a bias to the followers of different faiths and sects.
I consider religious rituals means of connecting to Allah, the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe. Followers of different religions try to connect to Him in different ways. That hardly matters.
What matters is that one’s heart and soul should be purified and filled with love for the suffering humans and all other creatures of Allah.
By trying to promote love and tolerance among the followers of different faiths, one can serve his/her religion better than by attempting to impose one’s religious views on others by means of coercion and social pressure.
A friend of mine, who despite being a practising and pious Muslim, is labelled as sacrilegious even by his close friends, because of his unconventional approach to life and religion.
Once he told me that he gets up at 0400 early in the morning even on weekends and holidays.
After offering morning prayer and reciting selected verses of the Holy Qur’an, he takes a cup of tea before going to washroom.
He has a male servant, a young boy of about 20 years of age, but he prepares tea himself and calls the boy only when he is about to leave for office.
On weekends, he prepares even the breakfast himself to let the young man thoroughly enjoy and relax on a holiday.
He treats his servant like a family member. Resultantly his servant too loves him like his father.
My friend told me that his servant often returns home before the expiry of his leave, because he misses him while living in his village.
According to my friend the feelings and love of his servant changed his outlook to life. It made him realize that the love one gets from his servants, family, friends, etc.
, gives him/her much more satisfaction than what one gets from the worldly pursuits or even while performing religious rituals.
From the experience of my friend, I learned that to live a satisfied and contented life, one must try to attain the blessings of Allah by distributing love and happiness among His creatures.
One should try not to do anything that might create inconvenience and difficulties for Allah’s creatures even in an indirect way.
In the end, I would say that after reading the works of Muslim Sufi saints and interacting with enlightened people, I have discovered that the true spirit of religion is that worship is not even a customary ritual unless heart and soul are filled with compassion and love for the living beings, particularly the humans, irrespective of their faith or sect.
The views and very simple code of conduct of my friend, is a good example to know that being a practising Muslim is far less complicated and difficult than it is normally portrayed and presented by the religious preachers.
It also shows that the professional religious figures, who have made religion a business to mint money by exploiting the religious sentiments of the ignorant masses, have defaced the true spirit of religion.
If the purification of heart and soul through love is the essence of religion, I think, contrary to the popular understanding, it represents a progressive approach to life.
Our dependence on ignorant and narrow-minded religious leaders is the primary cause of misunderstanding about the true spirit of Islam as a code of conduct.
—The writer, a retired Brigadier, is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad.
