Question: What are the messages given to believers in the parable of Cain and Abel?

In relation to this and other stories in the Qur’an, it is important to know that they are not in the holy scripture just for the sake of conveying historical knowledge. The Qur’an is teaching us certain truths by means of them. What falls to us is to find their aspects that relate to our time and draw lessons from them.

A superficial consideration will not be so helpful to disclose the truths behind these verses. It requires reading them time and again, in their integrity and with serious thought. “It must definitely be telling something to me here” should be our approach to every verse, as if it were a direct address to us. And so should we approach the parable of the two sons of Prophet Adam.

As is known, there was a disagreement between Cain and Abel. Cain did not consent to what God decreed for him. Upon this, in order to test who was right and who was wrong, they referred to a practice special to the people of that era. Accordingly, a fire that descended from the sky would destroy the sacrifice of the righteous one and not touch the sacrifice of the other. This way it would be clear who was right and who was wrong. Thus they offered a sacrifice each and a fire that descended from the sky took the sacrifice of Abel. Cain was so much blinded by greed and envy that he could not admit the result although his being wrong was affirmed by God Almighty Himself. Then he committed the sin of murdering his brother, as related in the Qur’an. Afterwards he buried the body in the ground, following the example of a crow he saw digging up the earth.

Now imagine a person who was brought up in the household of a Prophet. Yet, he is not consenting to God’s decree about him, then committing a willful murder, and then hiding the proof of what he did. His discontent with God and murder of his brother were so gross as crimes that they made him enter a dark realm step by step; he may even have fallen to unbelief after a certain point, for the Qur’an says that he became a loser forever.

“Narrate to them (O Messenger) in truth the exemplary experience of the two sons of Adam…” (Maeda 5:27-31). The Qur’an and authenticated sayings of the Messenger do not mention their names. These names are taken from the Old Testament. No matter what their names were, both of them were brought up under the guidance of a Prophet, in a home where revelation was showering over them. Therefore, Cain was most probably a believer like Abel, but he obeyed Satan and killed his brother. Cain was the first one among children of Adam to commit murder, and thus he is the one who blazed this evil trail for the first time. In this regard his sin is a manifold one and this sin may have led him to unbelief; with the approach of Said Nursi, every sin is a path leading to unbelief. At the same time, every step taken toward sin is a step taken toward unbelief.

The sin that caused Cain to lose is jealousy and intolerance. It is his jealousy of what God granted to his brother and not accepting the Divine decree. As the Qur’an clearly points out in different verses, God created everyone differently. He bestowed different blessings to everyone, endowed everybody with different talents and abilities, and rendered some better than others. The Qur’an states that even some of the Prophets were exalted above some others (Isra 17:55). Even if a person is better than others in one thing, that person can be behind others in another thing. For certain wisdoms we do not know of, God Almighty may have given more to some, endowed them with knowledge and wisdom, and expanded their horizons. By utilizing these favors of God properly, they may have realized even further progress. Each of these is an element of trial. The trial and responsibility of one who received more blessings in a certain respect is greater. On fulfilling what that responsibility calls for, that person will have passed the trial.

The other person’s responsibility is to the degree of the blessing they received. The duty that falls to a believer is to meet all of these decrees of God Almighty with respect, consenting to what is in hand, and fulfilling the due responsibility for what fell to their own share. However, many people cannot easily stomach others who are better than themselves. Because of their jealousy, such people kill their own hearts, consume their own good deeds, and come under the burden of sins, without even being aware of it. If one does not try to extinguish the fire of their intolerance and envy and not curb those feelings, then the person puts them into action and starts committing sins.

Abel’s stance

Another point that catches attention in the parable mentioned is the attitude taken by Abel in response to Cain’s attempt for murder. The Qur’an relates this attitude as follows: ““Yet if you stretch out your hand against me to kill me, I will not stretch out my hand against you to kill you. Surely I fear God, the Lord of the worlds…” These words of Abel are counseling us to avoid tit-for-tat, namely not to respond to aggression with aggression.

This does not necessarily mean we should not use our right of legal defense when appropriate. On the contrary, a person is responsible for protecting their faith, life, honor, and property. Lawful defense is not a sin or crime. If a person dies while trying to defend these essential values, he or she is regarded as a martyr.

Be that as it may, it is also important to respond with tolerance as much as possible, of course without failing to protect what we should. “Without hands against those who strike, without a tongue against those who curse, and without a bitter heart against those who feel bitter against us”; responding in this manner is so essential to improve personal relationships and to establish peace in our local communities and around the world. Even if some show their teeth growling at us, we should still respond saying, “God did not give us teeth to bite others and claws to attack them.” We still prefer to behave mildly towards everybody, particularly so towards our fellow community of believers, as an indication of magnanimity; this must be our unchanging character.

In our time, even trivial matters are made into a fuss with political considerations or other plans. To obtain esteem and status, they greatly exaggerate petty issues as if they were crucial, and raise big fights around these. For this reason, choosing the way of mildness and not responding to evils with evil are very important in terms of establishing peace in society. If only politicians too could learn certain things from this lesson of the Qur’an and revise their style accordingly once more! If only they would check with their ways and methods with regard to the Qur’anic virtues and could moderate certain attitude and behaviors of theirs. If only they did not act in such a reactionary way, not add fire to flames of disagreement, and not destroy bridges of peace.

Balance in love and anger

The Messenger of God counsels a person to have moderation at loving someone and to have moderation at being angry with someone, because the person we love might become an enemy one day and the person we are angry with might become a friend one day (see Tirmidhi, Birr 60). So when such a day comes, you might feel very serious remorse for what you did in the past. Therefore, one should not go to excess neither in love not in anger.

If you praise somebody to the skies, they will fall to the ground and shatter when you stop. In the same way, when you are enraged with someone, you should know to curb your rage, for your paths might cross later in very different terms. We should not act solely by looking at the present day, as if there were no tomorrow. Who knows, maybe tomorrow we will come side by side with people with whom we are at loggerheads today, and at a critical moment we may need to struggle against a common adversary together.

This was the very conduct followed by Abel, brought to our attention as a paragon of virtue. If only people who influenced others with their ideas and writings acted more sensibly by taking into consideration the tomorrow of the path they are walking.

Question: Oppression is everywhere and exists in almost every form. How should believers respond to oppression when they have to face it?

Oppression, at its most basic form, is a transgression of boundaries and a violation of others’ rights. Killing an ant is oppressive, for nobody is authorized to take an animal’s right to life unjustly. If it is human who is being unjustly treated then it is definitely a form of oppression of a much higher magnitude. As for the oppression committed against a collective group of people, that is an incomparably greater and more horrible misdeed.

Irrespective of its exact nature, believers are seriously warned not to oppress others. Otherwise, it will appear on the Day of Judgment as a manifold darkness that will suffocate and distress the one who oppresses (Bukhari, Mazalim 9; Muslim, Birr 56). Each act of oppression and injustice – be it against animals, people, or even God – will appear before that person as a separate trouble in the Afterlife.

Oppression, according to some insightful scholars, is among one of the obstacles that can prevent a person from embracing faith. While it is an obstruction to having belief in God, it is similarly a significant reason that causes believers to drift out of the realm of faith.

Preventing oppression

Given that oppression is evil to this degree in regard to how other people are treated, it definitely needs to be prevented. According to Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, everyone should try to prevent oppression depending upon their capability, power, and position be it by direct intervention or via verbal objection. In the event that a person cannot resist oppression physically or verbally, it is at least necessary to protest the oppressor in one’s heart (Sahih al-Muslim, Iman 78; Tirmidhi, fitan 11; Abu Dawud, salat 239). Likewise, it is a famous old adage that “(the) one who remains silent before oppression is a mute devil.”

Preventing oppression on a smaller scale is within the capability of individuals, but there are some forms of oppression that can only be prevented by the state. In this contemporary world when justice and democracy have wide – though not perfect – prevalence such oppressions are committed at degrees big enough that even states are not able to tackle them. Preventing those oppressions and successions of atrocities, by which people are swept away in floods of blood, families are shattered, children are orphaned, and spouses are widowed, can only be possible through the hands of certain international establishments and organizations. In this respect, those who remain silent before oppression while they have the power to stop it—be they individuals, a state, or an international establishment—in a way have a share in that oppression by turning a blind eye to it and not taking the preventive action that they could have, and they will be treated accordingly on the Day of Judgment.

As it is very important to take a stance against oppression and to prevent it, determining the correct strategy to follow while not making any mistakes with the method is no less important. People must reckon well from the beginning how they can prevent unfairness, be aware of their capabilities, and also must not exacerbate problems while attempting to prevent oppression. They must not commit evil by thinking that they are doing something good.

Nothing good can come from oppression

It is a gross delusion to think that one can reach any positive goal via oppression and injustice. While it is not possible to obtain any favorable outcome with oppression, it is not possible to reclaim one’s violated rights via oppression either. If people try to move themselves or their societies in a new direction, or try to reclaim the rights that they lost by means of oppression, then this will give way to new acts of oppression, violations of rights, and a shattered system of justice. If these demands are for rights to be upheld and for justice to prevail, then strict adherence to a righteous course is needed from beginning to end. Just as the end should be lawful, so should be the means and ways to that end.

We do not know exactly to what degree we can prevent any oppression and injustice in our time. What matters most is being on the path to setting things right and correcting previous misdeeds. The duties that befall the wayfarers of the righteous path are that they must always be representatives of what is right and truthful, open one’s heart to everyone, and also not respond to oppression and injustice committed in the same wrong way. To put this in the words of the Poet Nabi:

“Do not trouble anyone with oppression
Even if they did oppress you, you do not be unjust to them
Do not arrive at God’s door with complaints
As for those who oppressed you, leave them to the Divine.”

Be like Rumi

In many instances, we quote, with a little bit of boastful considerations, the names of masters such as Jalaluddin Rumi, Yunus Emre, Ahmad Yasawi, or Haji Baktash Wali and bring their tolerance to attention. It is easy to make mention of Rumi, but it is difficult to be like him. At a time when you make mention of Rumi, are you really able to open your arms for all people, even for those who insulted you? When they come upon you, do you seek ways to settle issues in a peaceful manner? Are you able to make those who bear hostility against you share the same peaceful considerations after a while? This is how you become a Rumi in the real sense.

Historians mention the following anecdote about the tolerance of Rumi: One day, a rude bigot accosted him and criticized his statements such as, “one of my feet is in the center of Islam, while the other is among all nations of the world.” He accused Rumi of apostasy, misguiding Muslims, and proceeded to let out an invective against him. Without ever interrupting the man, the venerable master listened to him peacefully with God-granted self-restraint. On seeing that the man stopped talking and had no other words to say, he asked if he was done. When the man replied in the affirmative, Rumi spoke with a soft voice and said, “You are most welcome; my heart is open for you too.”

This is the very point at which words cease. In such a situation, all of the negative feelings within the latter melted away. The grudge and hatred suddenly started pouring down in the form of fireworks of love. While it is possible to treat people with showers of light, why should we shower them with meteors instead?

If you are focused on representing the spirit of Rumi, even if those who show hostility towards you commit oppression and injustice against you for one, two, three, or four times, they will give up such acts after some time on account of not having the same kind of response from you. Now, while there is a way to settle issues with mildness and agreement, why should we engage in other behavior that will only spur ill-feelings and hatred?

One thing that needs to be kept in mind is that we can give up on our personal rights and forgive others for their unfair treatment of us. However, we do not have the authority to forgive on behalf of others when there is an offense against values like faith or country. When such an offense happens, we should make plausible explanations to offenders to show them what they are doing is wrong. If they still insist, we deny their claims with denouncements. If they still persist, then we sue them and claim compensation.

We must always act carefully to remain within the confines of laws and ethics, and we must never make concessions on our fairness when responding in these ways. It is paramount that we must always act humanely but assertively. Even while making certain clarifications, corrections, and denouncements, we always try to give positive messages to the other side and never make concessions from our own character. We voice what we are to say not with whisperings of Satan, but with the voice and breath of the Archangel Gabriel. Oppression and assaults only indicate the character of the offender. This situation should not avert people attached to faith and universal human values to act as becomes their own character.

Is it worth it?

This passing worldly life is neither worth committing oppression against others nor responding to their oppression in the same way. After all, each of us is a traveler in this world. After staying in this guesthouse that we call life, we will pass to the Afterlife in order to be brought to account for what we did here. Is it worth it to promote fighting? Is it worth it at all to cause disunity and dissension? Is it worth it at all to commit oppression and injustice?

In an anonymous saying, the simple and transient nature of the world is expressed as follows:

Behold with the eyes of wisdom, this world is but a guesthouse;
Not a single person remains settled, what a strange abode it is.
The share of a king and subject alike, is nothing but a plain shroud.
As for those who fall for it, what else can they be called but mad?

Humankind has oftentimes made use of oppression and hatred in order to solve the problems that we collectively faced. If only we could make use of love and tolerance from now on! If only we were able to open our hearts to everyone so that those who enter therein would never have worries of remaining without a seat. If only we would treat everyone with a deep feeling of respect and reverence, and if only we could read into other’s feelings, their cultural backgrounds, and treat everyone with a serious feeling of empathy! For whatever style of treatment we expect to receive from others, they similarly expect the same from us. If we expect respect, we must show respect. If we expect observance of our rights, we must observe everybody’s rights.

It is necessary to know that the problems in our time have taken a complicated form to such an extent that they cannot be tackled by those with narrow minds and dull thoughts. There is not much that those with radical thoughts, who act out of bigotry in order to pursue arrogant purposes, can do for the sake of conquering people’s hearts and bringing peace to humanity. Particularly with this harsh attitude of theirs, they can never evoke in hearts any love towards their own values. They cannot let others love the Pride of Humanity, peace and blessings be upon him, because they are too captivated by their own worldly, illicit desires.

Therefore, for the sake of solving the problems of humanity, there is a need for people with immense conscience, rich hearts, and profound thought. Just as Rumi brought people together anew with the plausible cures he came up with some 7-8 centuries ago, in the contemporary world when people are so detached from one another, when people cannot agree on anything, and relations are built upon conflict and hostility, the duty that falls to those with faithful hearts is to revive the spirit of Rumi once again. As far as this cannot be done, it will not be possible to put a stop to oppression and hostilities in different parts of the world. This is particularly the case if we consider to what degree world peace is under threat by ambitious tyrants and horrible weapons prepared with vengeful intentions. It will then be best understood how great the responsibility is of the altruistic souls who have dedicated their lives to love and tolerance.

Question: “Peaceful settlement is better” (Nisa 4:128) reads a Qur’anic verse. What are the messages to be drawn from this verse?

Answer: The basic factor that lies in the basis of clashes and fights today is entanglement with oneself. Everybody is seeking to establish their own model of the individual, family, city, state, and world. In a world where everybody runs after their own model and structure it is not possible to meet in the middle with a compromise. Accordingly, when every intellectual, movement, and state envisions some ideas and systems of theirs, they take these as the sole criteria and expect others to comply with them too, it will obviously result in such a mess. Unfortunately, such a reality underlies behind the tensions, disorder, and confusion we experience today.

Tolerance and clemency

The best elixir to solve these confusions is tolerance and clemency, being open to agreement and reconciliation with almost everybody, and our readiness to engage in dialogue with others. To realize that, we need to shake off our own caprices, greed, and the diseases of asserting their own feelings and thoughts as the only right way to go. Doubtlessly, this depends upon a person’s ability to break free of arrogance, destroy the egotism of “I,” and take some rest in the stopover of “us,” and then journey onto “Him” (to God) afterwards.

It is very difficult for those taken by their egotism, considerations of affiliation, or by love of their groups to stand open to peace and meet different ideas with respect. As far as they hold the benefits of their own group above everything else and cannot rid themselves of bigotry, they cannot form strategies of peace for the good of humanity. Actually, it is very difficult to say that those people ever have such a goal in mind since they are consistently so uncompromising to diversity.

In the globalizing world of our time, there is no other alternative than tolerance and dialogue in order for humanity to live in peace. As for letting a culture of tolerance prevail, it is necessary for both individuals and societies to give up seeing themselves as the absolute representatives of truth and to always deem the possibility that other’s thoughts and approaches can also be correct. Even if different ideas and thoughts are not completely true, it should not be forgotten that there may be a grain of truth in them at least. Remember the statements of Said Nursi who said that there is a grain of truth even in the Mu‘tazilite and Fatalist (Jabriya) schools of thought, but that these sects went wrong since they saw the truth as exclusive to themselves.

Today, everyone has a peculiar “correct” viewpoint of their own, and others’ opinions are wrongfor the sole reason that they belong to others. Such a bias does not allow suitable grounds to discuss whether they are correct or not. We sometimes try to defend ideas even we don’t believe.

Peace begins in the family

Actually, by decreeing that “peaceful settlement is better” (Nisa 4:128) the Qur’an invites people to reconciliation and agreement, to accept that there can also be a share of truth in others’ statements and actions. As is known, this verse was revealed about the family, the smallest molecule of society. God Almighty showed the way to be followed against occasional discord and situations between spouses; He taught that they are not supposed to consider divorce right away but instead it is necessary to seek mutual agreement while preserving the family.

Given that the Qur’an demands resolving dents and fissures by peaceful means, even in a familial level, approaching problems at the scope of a town, city, state, or world with peace will be much more desirable.

In this respect, no matter which aspect of society is concerned, the duty that falls upon people is being in pursuit of maintaining peace and all of the beneficial and good byproducts that come from peaceful means. The fact that people have different religions, cultures, ethnical identities, and worldviews should not be seen as an obstacle to this issue. It must be shown that peaceful coexistence is possible even between people who follow different religions or who do not believe in any religion.

Therefore, it is necessary to develop projects for maintaining such a general peace and to develop reasonable strategies because maintaining that is not as easy as it might seem. The maintenance of peace calls for very serious efforts and endeavors. On the way to obtain such an important outcome, sometimes it is necessary to be ready to forget certain fights that occurred in the past, to be ready to forgive, and to make concessions when needed. In short, it is needed to forbear everything possible for the sake of letting people live together in an atmosphere of peace. Of course, while doing so no one should compromise the honor of a people or nation.

Obstacles are overcome with mature people

It is only those alive with regards to their spirit, heart, senses, feelings, and thoughts who will succeed at building a spirit of unity and a culture of reconciliation in society. Those with high spirit can spark vibrancy in others, too. For people who have reached a serious level of satiation, satisfaction, and contentment in the spiritual sense, even very big problems become very little. Such people even pass over enormous trenches with the ease of jumping over little pits. However, as for a person who has not been able to break free from their ego, who has not been able to abandon being physical-oriented, and who has not been saved from being directed by fancies and desires, in short, a person who has not started journeying into the life degrees of the heart and spirit will not do much for the peace and happiness of humanity.

This is a significant reason for the breakings, cracks, conflicts, and fights that are happening in our time. People who are not sufficiently mature are so touchy and easily offended by even the slightest things. As they have not been able to rid themselves of their roughness, they get offended and hurt right away when they cannot find the looks they desired and the attitudes that they expected. If someone gives them a nudge in the ribs to invigorate, warn, or to stimulate them, they react as if they were hurt with a spear.

The duty that falls to believers is not being heartbroken even in the face of offensive behavior. Instead of accusing those who behave negatively and making negative assumptions about them, they should turn to God and say: “O God, we are probably facing these difficulties because of our failure to be properly righteous; please set them, and us, right!”

One must be very determined about not being heart broken and offended by anyone. If we devoted ourselves to serving humanity, then it is necessary to lay our heads under their feet with utter self-sacrifice. To put it in the words of Seyyid Nigari:

“Will one who seeks the Beloved be concerned for his own life?
And will one concerned for his own life be in quest of the Beloved?”

I think this is the very thought to let humanity, which has miserably doubled up, to straighten up again.

As is known, the noble Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) positioned a group of archers before the Battle of Uhud on a hill and gave strict instructions that they were not supposed to leave their position no matter what happened. However, most of the archers who had not grasped the critical importance of precision at following the orders left their positions upon seeing the enemy fleeing the ground; they thought that their duty was over. It is after this point that the Muslims were surrounded from behind with a new maneuver by the polytheist army and received a very serious blow. Even the noble Prophet received an injury to his blessed head and his tooth was broken. But he gathered his Companions again as if nothing had happened and held a consultation with them. He did not embarrass them by mentioning their fault and did not reproach them in the slightest degree. What a breeze of kindness that was!

Who knows how humiliated they felt because of the judgmental error they had made. By means of referring to their consultation again about the new steps to be taken, he relieved the hearts of his Companions who were aware of their fault and were suffering with due remorse. This is the way to spur heroism in spirits and to mend the breakages and cracks that occur.

The Peace of Hudaybiya

At this point, I think most people will not help but remember the treaty of Hudaybiya, because the noble Prophet had made concessions upon concessions for the sake of making that treaty. Although accepting some of the articles was so hard on him, he forbore with that solely for the sake of maintaining reconciliation and forming an atmosphere of peace.

While departing from Medina, the Messenger of God had promised to his Companions a pilgrimage visit to the holy Ka‘ba. For the sake of realizing this promise, they had covered a distance of more than 400 km riding their horses and camels and come to the vicinity of Mecca. They had even put on their ihram garbs for this visit and taken their sacrifices with them. However, the polytheists of Mecca accosted them in Hudaybiya and said, “we neither let you enter Mecca, nor do we let you visit the Ka‘ba.” Thanks to the endeavors and prophetic intelligence of God’s Messenger, the polytheists were convinced to sign the peace treaty of Hudaybiya. However, they also stipulated as an article of the treaty that the Muslims would go back without observing their pilgrimage visit. This was very heavy on the Companions who had been homesick for Mecca and the Ka‘ba for eight years. So much so that they reminded the noble Prophet about the promise he had made but received the answer that he had not specified it to be in that year, but they also received a promise from him that they would observe it the following year. It is not so difficult to imagine how much this situation must have hurt the Prophet, the paragon of kindness.

During this confrontation at Hudaybiya, the Meccan commander Khalid ibn Walid, who had not become a Muslim then, kept spurring his horse here and there in a manner of challenging the Muslims, and he even tried to provoke them. In addition, Mecca’s representative Suhayl ibn Amr objected to the title “Messenger of God” to be written in the treaty and they stipulated the noble Prophet’s name to be written as “Muhammad, son of Abdullah.” In the meantime, the same Suhayl ibn Amr’s son Abu Jandal, who had been imprisoned by his father broke free and came up until Hudaybiya in a pitiable condition by dragging the shackles on his leg. He sought refuge with the Messenger of God. However, the father demanded his son to be given back to him as required by the treaty and for the sake of not upsetting the established peace, God’s Messenger had to accept it unwillingly.

Note that all of these conditions were not to be accepted easily. The more so when the noble Prophet is concerned, a person with such a high degree of honor, dignity, and esteem; because great personages have sensitivity and caring beyond our estimation. Nevertheless, the Qur’anic statement meaning, “It may be that you (O Messenger) will torment yourself to death because they refuse to believe” (Shuara 26:3) also expresses his lofty degree of caring. However, the Messenger of God managed to suppress all of these by exercising an extraordinary degree of self-possession. He did not make these offenses a matter of honor.

In a way, this meant having a holistic perspective and seeing very well the beautiful future that peace and tolerance promised. With this attitude, the Pride of Humanity was at the same time giving Muslims a lesson that they should not be obstinate at certain matters, not act for the sake of their ego, to keep away from superficial and casual evaluations, from being farsighted, not being offensive to others, and from not generating problems in the future by resorting to brutality and violence. This is the way to keep away from intertwined troubles and spiral of problems.

The Treaty of Hudaybiya Is the Conquest

Such are the heavy conditions that the peace treaty of Hudaybiya was signed under. This had felt hurtful to the dignity and honor of Muslims. However, the Qur’an gave the glad tidings that this treaty was a plain victory and the results of the treaty also proved this. Only after this treaty was it that Muslims had an opportunity to travel freely and express themselves in the Arabian Peninsula, grudge, hatred, and animosities abated, many people got to know Muslims more closely.

Based upon this practice, we can say the following: If contemporary Muslims as well want to build such an atmosphere of peace in their country and abroad then they must know to make serious sacrifices. If they cannot tolerate certain unpleasant situations that they do not approve of but always bring their honor and pride to the fore, then they will be deprived of large-scale examples of goodness to be obtained by means of peace.

If the conditions of the contemporary world are considered, it will be seen that the humanity is in dire need of such agreement and reconciliation more than ever. Because solving so many gangrenous problems, saving countries from disintegration, and maintaining security of roads are dependent on this. In this respect, the logic and reasoning in the peace of Hudaybiya need be comprehended and practiced very well.

There was once a time when we enjoyed mutual love and respect. We had started to relate to one another. That was when everything looked different and cozy across the land. Even if some inappropriate and disturbing voices were occasionally heard, almost every segment of society was experiencing the excitement of spring and was having long summer dreams.

Almost all of us were embracing each other with the joy of rediscovering our golden memories and reclaiming who we once were. We were singing songs of love with the enthusiasm of learning about one another. Colorful images of a world of brotherly and sisterly love were in our ever-deepening aspirations and dreams. It was a time of friendliness, profound compassion, and universal mercy. We marched towards days in which feelings of grudge and hatred would and could not survive. We felt that our hopes and expectations had come fully alive inside of us; everything was opening to us with a magic that enveloped our whole being. We embraced the love, respect, and tolerance that were once woven into our lives, and called upon on our golden ages, which we called the prosperous “days of God.” We were filled with enthusiasm and hope as we constantly strove to become who we once used to be and moved forward to love the feeling of love, to hate the feeling of hate, and to resist the feeling of hostility in our hearts.

We needed to graft youth onto our aging spirits – to color our faded feelings with the vividness of our faith and to mark the hours with the magic of time that we still believed to be alive. We needed to release the hands of the clock, which had long been tied to a rusty spring! These were the intentions; whether these things were fully done is quite a different matter.

In our recent past we were engaged in a nationwide “dialogue,” and we felt like the season was moving towards spring; we were overjoyed with our blossoming hopes, and we lived constantly with the dreams that almost all segments of society would embrace this refined, delicate, and soft atmosphere. We evaluated every step forward as a sign of the dawn of days of love, and we were excited to be soaring towards the horizon of our dreams as if we were preparing for “a night of union with the beloved.” We were so excited that we felt our hearts could rip apart out of joy; we hoped the hours and days we had lost in the past would be returned to us.

If only we could have continued on this course! Actually, there was no apparent reason not to. However, in truth we have remained very, very much behind our hopes and dreams in this matter. We considered everything from the perspective of optimism, tolerance, and good opinion – it was beyond our imagination that enmity, hatred, rage, anger, fanaticism, and bigotry would still wait in ambush. We could perhaps be excused, because we thought that these cursed thoughts had completely died and no longer existed among the enlightened people of a civilized world. We thought that in a time when goodness, beauty, virtue, and universal values had been resurrected one after the other, these buried ideas would not come back to life again. If only we had not been mistaken! We valued respect and good opinion about others – sadly, we were mistaken.

All these bad feelings and evil obsessions, which we thought would not rise again, came back to life and reclaimed every realm like ghouls. Those overwhelmed with these obsessions were attacking everything with the delirium of a Qarmatian,[1] cutting everything and everybody with the logic of a Khawarij,[2] and assaulting everything with the attitude of an anarchist. They ran from one horror to another at the behest of enmity, hatred, rage, and anger; they destroyed the bridges to love and tolerance, ruined the roads, suppressed loving spirits, infused violence and rage into hearts beating with love, darkened the smiles on faces which are otherwise filled with compassion, and destroyed the points of cohesion among different circles and segments of society. They severed and tore into pieces the spirit of unity among them and scattered seeds of hostility among all the hearts they could reach.

Yes, first they shook the trust individuals felt for each other. They scattered seeds of negative thoughts and doubt among different segments of society. Then, with unimaginable slander and lies against representatives of tolerance, they twisted the most-sincere behavior and tied it to false goals and targets and set fire to all good works. They aroused suspicion regarding the most positive efforts, and they looked for different purposes in proposals that were made in the name of dialogue. They distorted and cut and pasted even the most beneficial words and statements into things that they aren’t. They displayed the most shameful examples of depredation.

Even if these satanic efforts did not have an impact on most of the people, they were sufficient to incite a marginal segment that has always been tied to violence, anger, enmity, and hatred. They rebelled and declared war on such concepts as “tolerance,” “love,” “accepting everyone as they are,” and “a world without war.” They shook the hope in hearts; destroyed the trust and confidence people had towards one another; and broke into pieces, scattered, and destroyed the basic principles tying different segments of the population together.

It is certain that they were not able to fool everyone, were not able to penetrate every bosom, were not able to arouse suspicion in every brain and were not able to seduce most people. However, their efforts to cut and sever, to divide and tear into pieces, and to smash everything were not completely unfruitful. Many people who had just recently escaped from the former days of conflict and who stood in their places unsteadily were again shaken, and all their feelings and thoughts regarding tolerance were turned upside-down. This meant that the efforts that had been put forward for years in the name of brotherhood, friendship, and dialogue were lost, and the roads leading to dialogue and peace that would be realized with efforts along this line were closed, even if temporarily.

In order not to feel in my spirit the sabotage of the many beautiful deeds and efforts that have been made to date and the destruction of the many positive developments, I turn the face of my dreams on another side and, escaping from reality, I try and suppress the palpitations of my heart. More accurately, at this moment I cannot think of anything else to do with the lethal dreams that have squeezed my heart, raised my blood pressure, and opened the way to illness. But however distant I try and remain from them, still the things that have happened sneak into my thoughts by any path and sometimes pierce my heart like a poisonous arrow. Even if I don’t want to, I moan and writhe with this egregious awareness that flows into my mind, and who knows how many times a day I wail, “O God, show us the way out and to relief.”

Sometimes I am frightened by the prospect that the webs of love among different segments of the society will be torn. Sometimes I shudder at the disturbing roars that suppress calls for tolerance and dialogue. I think of the misfortune that feelings of friendship and brotherhood are groaning under the lethal blows of enmity and hatred, and I recoil. Sometimes I remain frozen in my place without thinking anything.

Every time I think of the now-faded colors of those open and warm days of brotherhood and friendship—their vividness now faded in hearts and their horizons now darkened—I seem to be witnessing the face of someone walking towards death or the state of a building that has decayed and will soon be demolished. In my helplessness, I just react by moaning and trying to cool down my heart. When a feeling, a thought, an understanding, and a philosophy has been targeted so cruelly, how can it survive and continue to fulfill its goal? Those who observe the events with some common sense can pass a judgment on this.

The claims were groundless, the assault was merciless, the commotion was frightening, the campaign was planned, the conspiracy was satanic, and the targets of all these activities were friendship, brotherhood, and love. It was another invasion, and values were destroyed. Regardless of how sensibly the people acted, something broke off from their hearts, and the trust people had for one another was shaken to a great extent. After this terrifying noise and commotion, people would not be able to love one another as before, trust one another, come together comfortably; or, if they did come together, they would not be able to embrace one another as sincerely as before. Gatherings would no longer witness an exchange of smiles, people would not be able to shake hands in heartfelt ways, hearts would not be able to beat with compassion, and those days of warmth would fall in defeat to a strange February cold. This means that the door of each heart would not be open to everyone with the same warmth, eyes would become stingy with smiles, and lips would not murmur love.

It was as if the dreams for the future were finished, fantasies of unison and togetherness were destroyed, the lights of hope in hearts were extinguished, and breaths whispering safety were stopped. May God not show this strange silence again. Everything seemed to have surrendered to an anxiety-laden hush… These chilling pictures pass before my eyes several times a day, and I am being bent over and moan about the beautiful things that had been gained but are now labeled contemptible—things such as the love that had been broken into pieces and scattered right and left, human relationships, tolerance, dialogue, and understanding one another. I am moaning about the sabotage of the successes that had been achieved through very serious efforts; the ripping and tearing of that atmosphere of love; conflict among different segments of society flaring up again; enmity and hatred coming and dominating the scene; love, mercy, compassion, and hope for the future being driven away from door after door; and hostility once again rising up. I imagine myself writhing with pain and shudder at the tombstone of many beautiful things that have been killed.

However, in spite of this much evil and betrayal to what was once achieved, there are indications that those beautiful days will return and will be given back. It is like a building, half of which has been blown off or like an incomplete verse of poetry; yet there are so many lights on the roads we walk that inspire us with determination to restart construction or to excite the pen one more time. Every piece remaining from the world of hope that was destroyed and thrown aside seems to say, “Rely on God, hold onto hard work, submit to the divine wisdom / If there is a road, it is this; I know of no other way out” (Akif). Actually, the current situation is like a broken dream. This upsets me a lot, and I resent the things that are being done. However, since the path we follow is the path of the people, regardless of what we are subjected to, we are determined to meet everything that happens to us with patience and acceptance. As we envision in our soul the happy tomorrows of our society, we will reform our yearning and sadness with the joy of living for others; we will try to give this journey its due.

Some bigoted ideas have reduced our road to a rough trail; still, as long as there exists greenery swaying all around us, we will continue to love everyone. Indeed, we will continue this love, for there are friends on the road who trigger in our hearts the excitement to move forward; people who are open to dialogue with their most humane feelings and who continue to shake hands, embrace, and throw smiles around; consciences that recognize sin; spirits that regret mistakes; and minds that want to build the future on common sense and reason. We will once again gather together the damaged systems of our spirits, and, saying “one more time,” we will continue to love everyone.

Those feelings and thoughts, wilted by artificial dirges heard from almost all sides, will be reinvigorated when the season comes, and the music of spring will be once again heard everywhere.

In view of this much ruination, destruction, and fall—and urged by what my faith necessitates me to do—I have tried to voice a cry of persecution and inspire a feeling of determination and revival. I nurture the hope that my expectations will each be considered a prayer offered to the One, the Provider of needs.

Notes

[1] Qarmatians were a rebellious group that emerged in the tenth century from a group of Ismaili Shiites. They went as far as to desecrate the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, killed thousands of pilgrim Muslims, and shook the Abbasid regime. They mustered some strength and ruled over some of the Middle East until the mid-eleventh century, when they were forced to surrender.

[2] Having adopted an extremist doctrine in the first century of Islam, Khawarijs assassinated Ali, the fourth Caliph, and violently terrorized the stability of the Islamic state.

This brief essay has three basic aims. The first is to offer a general definition of the Hizmet movement. The second is to highlight some of the major characteristics of the movement that relate to its emphasis on education. The third is to convey the extent to which the teachings of Fethullah Gulen embody an understanding of, and commitment to, education as a liberative force, a commitment which resonates deeply with the role of education in the ongoing struggle for civil rights in the United States.

1. Definition

I define Hizmet (Turkish for “service”) as a global spiritual renewal and social reform movement, rooted in traditional Islamic spirituality, observance, and teachings, but appealing to people of diverse faiths and backgrounds who share its universal values. These values center around the importance of family, education, and personal responsibility for the welfare of others–all within a context of a life lived in loving submission (islam) to God. Such values are oriented towards dialogue and cooperation–both within and across societies and cultures–for the purpose of pursuing greater justice and thus greater peace and solidarity in the human family.

In this respect, Hizmet stands in contrast to other contemporary so-called “Islamist” movements which are primarily political in nature, seeking to pursue a reformist agenda by overtly “Islamizing” the governmental and legal structures of existing Muslim majority nation-states.

2. M. Fethullah Gulen’s teaching of Hosgoru as the dominant ethos of Hizmet

As many of the readers of this publication are well aware, the human spiritual inspiration behind the Hizmet movement is an elderly Turkish gentleman, who mows the lawn and washes the dishes, by the name of M. Fethullah Gulen. He is also known respectfully and affectionately to the millions who deeply admire and love him as a true man of God and eminently wise teacher, myself included, as “Hocaefendi” or “beloved teacher.”

There are many things one could say about this extraordinary man. Indeed multiple volumes could be written about his incredible life story of selfless service to God in the humble service he has always striven to render to others. Countless pages could be written exploring the insightful and profound ideas he shares in his scores of books translated into scores of languages. But Mr. Gulen himself would be displeased if he thought any writer was expending energy focusing on him rather than the mission to which he has dedicated his life and to which he has tirelessly invited countless others. So in deference to Mr. Gulen’s sensibilities, allow me to encapsulate a key principle of his teachings which is arguably the dominant ethos of the movement he has inspired. This key principle is known, in Gulen’s native Turkish, as hosgoru.

The standard translation of hosgoru into English is “tolerance.” Hence the following translation of a very famous set of verses from the poetry of Hocaefendi:

“Be so tolerant that your bosom becomes wide as the ocean. Be inspired with faith and love of human beings. Let there be no troubled souls to whom you do not offer a hand and about whom you remain unconcerned.”

Even as translated, the moral and spiritual pathos of these verses is powerful. Yet, as powerful as it stands, the translation is inadequate. Its inadequacy has primarily to do with the vagaries of translation and, in this particular instance, a significant semantic gap between the relatively maximalist root meaning of the Turkish word hosgoru and the rather minimalist contemporary connotation of the English word, “tolerance.” Whereas “tolerance” connotes a sense of enduring—usually with some difficulty—an adverse circumstance or set of circumstances, hosgoru connotes a radically different sensibility.

The term is derived from two roots: the first—hos—meaning “good”; and the second—gormek—meaning “to see.” Thus hosgoru literally means “seeing [especially the other] in a goodly manner” and/or “seeing the goodness in the other. Gulen writes:

“Under the lens of hosgoru, the merits of believers attain a new depth and extend to infinity; mistakes and faults shrink so much that they can be squeezed into a thimble. Actually the treatment of He Who is beyond time and space always passes through the prism of hosgoru, and we wait for it to embrace us and all of creation.”– “The Necessity of Interfaith Dialogue: A Muslim Perspective” (2001)

Attend, if you will, to what Mr. Gulen is saying here. He is not only implying that human dignity is elevated through an ethic of hosgoru. He is saying that God, Godself, looks upon God’s creation—and especially all human beings—through the “lens of hosgoru.” In other words, Gulen identifies hosgoru as a divinely ordained dynamic in the divine-human relationship. He is implying that if the One God, who is perfect and flawless, looks upon creation—and especially us human beings with all our sins and shortcomings—in a manner which emphasizes our goodness (cf. Hadith 37 of the Arba`in of al-Nawawi), how much more so are we, as flawed and sinful beings, beholden to look upon others in the same way?

3. Commitment to education and a pedagogical methodology of example (temsil)

Before I actually met Fethullah Gulen Hocaefendi, I felt that I had already met him in the many friends I had acquired from Hizmet. They concretize, in their lives, the essence of so much of what he teaches: humility, service and a deep concern for others (especially those who are suffering), dedication to family, commitment to self-improvement, and a willingness to learn from those who are different from themselves. These are all wonderful words, but in my many friends from Hizmet—working in so many different places around the world—they strive to put them into action. The world is hungry for examples not just rhetoric and Hizmet, in it’s own special way, is attempting to help satisfy this hunger. This notion of teaching by example—in Turkish, temsil—is a key component of the educational philosophy of, and pedagogical methodologies advocated by, Fethullah Gulen.

As Ruth Woodall (“Fethullah Gulen’s Philosophy of Education in Practice”) reminds us:

Gulen calls performance of the superficial, technical aspects of instruction “teaching”, reserving the term “education” for a deeper, more meaningful and holistic activity (unal and Williams 2000:312). Notwithstanding the importance that the schools attach to training in practical classroom technique, the teacher is more than a mere purveyor of information or skills. The relationship between teacher and student is crucial: “The best way to educate people is to show a real concern for every individual, not forgetting that each individual is a different ‘world'” (Unal and Williams 2000:313).

So, in Gulen’s thought, the role of the teacher as an exemplar of hosgoru is key to her or his effectiveness, not only in the classroom as a pedagogue, but as an educator in the broader and more holistic sense. We should not miss the degree to which Gulen models this in his own role as the paradigmatic teacher/educator or hoca par excellence of the Hizmet movement. The practical effects of Gulen’s own modeling of hosgoru are palpably evident in the teachers who work in the over 1500 Hizmet schools worldwide. To return to Woodhall:

This importance given to the development of the individual in the movement leads to teachers and administrators dedicating extra hours to free after-school and weekend lessons for individuals or small groups. Graduates of the schools, who have started university courses, also return voluntarily to help the students in the following years with their studies and to mentor them (Aslandogan and Cetin 2007:54). …Teachers’ altruism is not confined to sacrificing their time for students. They also make considerable financial sacrifices. Many teachers also sponsor students for part or all of their tuition. (www.fethullahgulenforum.org)

4. Mutually critical assessment of tradition and modernity

A characteristic of the teachings of Fethullah Gulen and the Hizmet movement, which has roots in the work of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (d. 1960), is the importance of placing tradition and modernity into a mutually critical conversation with one another, triangulating on questions of socio-cultural development and reform. Put simply, Gulen encourages those he inspires to take up the project of using modern ideas to critique and better understand traditional values and practices, and using traditional teachings better to assess and critically evaluate particular features of modernity. The reason for doing this is to arrive at the optimal synthesis of the traditional and the modern for the welfare of human societies.

As someone who spent his formative years in late twentieth century Turkey, Gulen experienced firsthand the many negative effects of a brand of coercive and oppressive laicite as part of a much larger project of nationalist social engineering. In particular, Gulen perceived the way in which “democracy” and its reputation as a “modern” value could be little more than a Western rhetorical trope. Indeed he witnessed the way in which this trope, when transplanted into his own Turkish republican context, was used to mask a very modern and unforgiving form of Kemalist authoritarianism which could well be assessed as far less “democratic” and certainly far less “pluralist” than the Ottoman imperial structures it supplanted. So, for Gulen, modern ideas, such as those distilled in the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, could be a very helpful lens through which Muslims could begin to glimpse with more clarity some of the foundational universalist and humanist principles proclaimed in the Qur’an and embedded within Islamic jurisprudence. By the same token, Gulen saw these very principles—especially in their particularly Islamic modality—as having much to offer, not just contemporary Muslim societies, but all societies.

In this regard, Gulen writes of democracy that it

“…has developed over time. Just as it has gone through many different stages in the past , it will continue to evolve and improve in the future. Along the way, it will be shaped into a more humane and just system, one based on righteousness and reality. If human beings are considered whole, without disregarding the spiritual dimension of their existence and their spiritual needs, and without forgetting that human life is not limited to this mortal life and that all people have a great craving for eternity, democracy could reach the peak of perfection and bring even more happiness to humanity. Islamic principles of equality, tolerance, and justice can help it do just this.” Toward a Global Civilization of Love and Tolerance (NJ: Tughra, 2011 p. 224)

5. Akil ve Kalb: The integration of “mind and heart,” of intelligence and compassion

A hallmark of Hizmet epistemology is the integration of akil ve kalb—of “mind and heart” or intelligence and compassion. In the broadest sense, this is an expression of Gulen’s—and therefore the movement’s—holistic approach to spirituality. In particular, Hizmet participants frequently exhibit an appreciation for the importance of the integration of mind and heart for improving human communities. People in the movement widely affirm the fact that arriving at good solutions to social problems necessitates hard critical analyses. At the same time, however, Hizmet participants would emphasize that every rational solution to a problem must be judged according to how it affects the lives of people—especially the most vulnerable–the ones the Qur’an refers to as the mustad’afun and the New Testament refers to as those “who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”

6. Dialogue and consultation

Closely related to the integration of “mind and heart”—especially with respect to meaningful and salutary social reform—is Gulen’s and the Hizmet movement’s emphasis on dialogue and consultation or, to use the Turkish term, istisare. Istisare is a strong ethic of mutual inquiry on strategies for achieving social goals. In fact, I would go so far as to say that there is a natural elective affinity between the largely intra-movement dynamic of istisare, on the one hand, and the movement’s deep commitment to intercultural and interreligious dialogue. I would also argue that, to a very significant degree, the Hizmet ethic and practices of dialogue and consultation comprise the foundation of its emerging identity as a movement of “civic Islam” (cf. Etga Ugur, “Civic Islam in the Public Sphere: the Gulen Movement, Civil Society and Social Capital in Turkey” http://www.islamconference.org/2006/ICI-06%20PAPERS/ABSTRACTS/Etga%20Ugur.pdf).

Conclusion: An illustrative personal story

I would like to close with a personal story which I hope will give you a sense of the global scope of the movement, as well as help illustrate the definition of Hizmet with which I began and the five major characteristics I’ve attempted to identify and briefly explicate.

A few years ago I had occasion to travel to South Africa where, among many other things, I had the opportunity to visit a Hizmet math and science academy for boys which largely served young men from the notoriously economically impoverished Apartheid Era township of Soweto. In fact, I had occasion to visit Soweto and meet people with indomitable and dignified spirits living in abject poverty (even long after Apartheid had been officially dismantled). I was taken there by the teachers at the Hizmet school who regularly visit with their students’ parents in adherence to the holistic educational philosophy of Fethullah Gulen. I also had the privilege of talking to these young men back at the school where they asked me lots of questions about what I did and about President Obama, and where I asked them questions about their studies, their school, and their hopes and dreams for the future.

After this unforgettable exchange, I went back to the office with the principle, where we chatted, and I got around to asking him about the background of the boys I had just met. When I asked about religion, the principle said to me, smiling: “Agabey (a Turkish term of respect for an elder), 80% are Roman Catholic like you!” I had to struggle to hold back my tears, even though by that point I well knew that Turkish men, and especially the men of Hizmet, have no problem crying or seeing other men cry. To think that these Turkish Muslims traveled thousands of miles from the many comforts—both material and spiritual—of their homes, at great personal and familial sacrifice, to build and operate a school so that my young Catholic brothers from Soweto could have a better chance at life, was emotionally and spiritually overwhelming. But more than that, it drove home to me the essence of Hizmet and the vision of Fethullah Gulen.

[This is an abbreviated and edited version of a talk originally given by the author on the occasion of the conferral on M. Fethullah Gulen of the Gandhi, King, Ikeda Peace Award by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King International Chapel of Morehouse College on April 09, 2015.]

“Historic” was a word I often heard a number of Ghanaian dignitaries used to describe the international conference on “Love & Tolerance: Peaceful Co-Existence in Diversity” which took place in Accra, Ghana on April 30, 2015. Sponsored by the National Peace Council (Ghana), and the Ghana-Turkey Cooperation and Development Association (TUDEC), along with The Fountain Magazine, the conference was a cooperative venture between Ghanaians and Turks. Over 300 men and women were in attendance as both speakers and participants, many of whom were distinguished religious, governmental, academic, and business leaders from Ghana and other parts of West Africa, as well as from Turkey and the U.S. The conference was intellectually stimulating and deeply moving, on so many levels. But perhaps the most memorable moment for me–as someone involved in building bridges of understanding, mutual respect, and cooperation between Muslims and Catholic Christians–was when the beloved Archbishop of Accra, Palmer Buckle, eagerly approached the revered Chief Imam of Ghana, Shaykh Nuhu Sharbatu, embraced him and said to me: “This is my father! This is my dear spiritual father!”

As the conference title indicates, its general theme was “love and tolerance,” especially among people of different faiths. But one name that came up over and over again was that of M. Fethullah Gulen, the spiritual inspiration behind the global Muslim spiritual renewal and social reform movement known as Hizmet. More than a few of the speakers discussed various aspects of Mr. Gulen’s teachings on dialogue and on education as the key to personal and social development in an increasingly inter-cultural and interdependent world. Particularly memorable, for me, in this regard were the presentations of Shaykh Khalid Abubakar Aliyu of the Jama`a Nasril Islam of Kaduna, Nigeria, and Prof. Jon Pahl of the Lutheran School of Theology in Philadelphia. Shaykh Khalid spoke of the way in which Gülen’s thought and educational philosophy are implicitly calling for a “psychological revolution” whereby human beings unashamedly recognize and celebrate as their strongest qualities their capacity for altruism, service, and openness to personal transformation in their encounters with the other. For his part, Prof. Pahl presented two very thoughtful images: the first being the “iceberg of violence,” and the second being “the garden of peace.” Pahl divided each image into three distinct dimensions moving from the personal to deeply embedded social structures. He explained how the methodologies of the Hizmet movement attempt to create a three-tiered “peace garden” in an attempt to “melt” the three-tiered “iceberg of violence.”

The conference breaks were marked by the artistry of a highly-skilled traditional Turkish music ensemble which served to elevate the atmosphere of fellowship by adding a dimension of aesthetic beauty to the already engaging analyses offered by the speakers. In the final minutes of the gathering, the distinguished chairman, the Rev. Dr. Emmanuel Asante, invited the HON. ABDUL-RASHID HASSAN PELPUO—the Minister of State in the administration of President John Dramani Mahama – to the podium. The minister spoke of how intellectually engaging and personally moving he found “this historic conference” to be. He also made a point of congratulating the conference organizers and emphasizing the degree to which Flagstaff House (the Ghanaian presidential residence) “strongly supports” and endorses this conference and its aims.

Scott C. Alexander
Director, Catholic-Muslim Studies, Catholic Theological Union in Chicago

Generally accepted as a Christian country, Australia became exposed to Christianity along with Judaism and Islam little more than 200 years ago, due to the arrival of the British settlers and scattered landings of Muslim Indonesian sailors on the northern shores (Stephenson, 2007). Evidence has shown that it is inaccurate to claim that Indonesian Muslims were the first to discover Australia. The earliest reliable evidence dates their presence in Australia to the mid-1700s, whereas it is known the Dutch had discovered it by 1606 (Ganter, 2008). Since the arrival of the first fleet in 1788, Australia has been subject to a regular influx of refugees and immigrants. As a direct result, integration of cultures has become an integral part of Australian society. Over the last 60 years, the population of Australia has become one of the most ethnically diverse in the world (Kurti, 2013). It is clear that today’s Australia is a multicultural and religiously diverse society. According to the 2011 Australian Census, over a quarter (26% or 5.3 million) of Australia’s population was born overseas and a further one-fifth (20% or 4.1 million) had at least one parent born overseas (Ozdowski, 2012). Since the 1970s, federal and local governments, NGOs, and various intercultural and interfaith organizations have worked incessantly to make Australia everyone’s home. The primary aim of this was to overcome misconceptions and to promote community cohesion through principles of respect, acceptance, tolerance, and collaboration.

Many cultures, including Australian (and by implication Western European cultures), view anything or anyone who comes across as different in regard to customs, appearance, dress or language, in a mistrustful way which can invoke a variety of emotions, ranging from mild loathing to extreme fear. Such views are further affected by constant media exposure of adverse events, including minor misdemeanors carried out by minority groups from particular ethnic and religious backgrounds. Controversial news travels faster and attracts more attention than noncontroversial news, so it is unsurprising that print and electronic media release unfavorable news almost exclusively on a daily basis. Furthermore, the overwhelming influence of visual and print media has on people’s perceptions and views, intentionally or otherwise, results in a one dimensional view of events. This type of news, informed by biased information, tends to shape responses to events in our lives in a way that creates serious prejudices.

Australia can be proud of its record when it comes to amicable and respectful inter-cultural community relations. This, along with its inclusive view of the religious beliefs of others, is founded on mutual respect and the forbearance of alternative points of view. In recent times, however, small but concerning components of insularity and corresponding multi-racial indifference has emerged, threatening the otherwise harmonious levels of co-existence. Much of the early success of colonial expansionism was due to the respect and tolerance of cultural differences by the British colonialists, especially in the Indian-sub continent. A notable exception, however, was the early treatment of the native Aboriginal people in Australia by European settlers (Reynolds, 1987). The initially negative treatment of native people by the white settlers evolved over time and led to a general shift in attitudes towards accepting each other’s views, cultures, and traditions.

In today’s world, one would have to be either intellectually myopic or simply deeply misinformed to have formed the view that ‘all is well’ in the world of human relations, with naked violence, in its worst possible forms, paraded in front of us daily in the international and local media. Those who profess naivety would appear to accept no responsibility for what is all too often a one-sided view of events. At a personal level, our relationships are strengthened by an open minded approach to the beliefs of others without feeling the need to force others with differing views to believe what we believe and perceive. However, they can also be affected by a sense of profound disquiet that comes in the wake of the often quite virulent proselytizing of those who cannot, or will not, acknowledge the rights of others to believe in their own version of the “truth.”

Few will argue that prejudice ‘feeds’ on ignorance, possibly the worst form of ignorance being one that is “fed” by innuendo, half truths, and downright slander. Australia, as a country with a historically Christian tradition, can be quite proud of its generally open-minded and fair approach towards fellow Australians who choose to follow other religious or cultural beliefs and traditions. According to (Koleth, 2010-11; 3-41) in Australia: “Multiculturalism has served a variety of goals over the years, including, the pursuit of social justice, the recognition of identities and appreciation of diversity, the integration of migrants, nation building, and attempts to achieve and maintain social cohesion.” This has become one of many reasons why our immigration policies, which have led to an enhanced acceptance of “multiculturalism,” now enjoy high levels of success and positive acclaim within the international community (Ozdowski, 2012).

One of the achievements of our immigration policy has been the acceptance of those who are refugees on humanitarian grounds, providing the bounty of many skills and practical abilities that migrants bring to our country. This has become vital to engender notions of acceptance and understanding in all people. In Australia, communities come from diverse political, cultural, and religious persuasions. Thus, the focus should be on a deeper level of unconditional acceptance, understanding, and affection between people who may not necessarily be well acquainted at a personal level. A good example of this is contained in a biblical utterance from Paul of Tarsus in his letter to the Corinthians: “And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (Corinthians 13:2). As this quote highlights, love forms the foundation of social acceptance and cohesion. It is, therefore, not too fanciful or naive to suggest that this type of love offers the best possibility for peaceful and harmonious co-existence between peoples of widely differing cultural and religious backgrounds.

Similar to the Christian teachings, Islam and its proponents promote tolerance at all levels: between family members, husband and wife, parent and child, as well as between groups and nations. The Qur’an says, ”O Mankind! We have created you male and female, and have made you nations and tribes so that you might [affectionately] come to know one another. Surely, the most honored among you, in the sight of God, is the most righteous of you. Indeed, God is Knowing and Acquainted” (49:13). To this end, the Qur’an commonly advocates tolerance, respect, and goodwill towards the People of the Book (Christians and Jews). For example, the Qur’an declares: “God does not forbid you, as regards those who do not make war against you on account of your Religion, nor drive you away from your home, to be kindly to them, and act towards them with equity. God surely loves the scrupulously equitable” (60:8).

Thus, in a spirit of tolerance, acceptance and understanding, Australia seems to fit well within this ideal paradigm. In Australia, immigrants of all nationalities and religious beliefs are well integrated by international standards. However, there still exists a pressing need for interfaith and intercultural dialogue between all members and from all strata of society. Currently, there are government organizations and NGOs promoting dialogue through various events and programs. Affinity Intercultural Foundation, the Australian Intercultural Society, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Victoria Multicultural Commission, and the Community Relations Commission for a multicultural NSW are some of the organizations who are genuinely exerting creditable efforts toward the goal of dialogue. The high degree of diversity in Australia could quite naturally lead to social segregation. Fortunately, the commonsense and basically fair-minded attitudes that prevail in Australia have prevented this from happening to the same extent as in Europe (Ozdowski, 2012). At the beginning of white settlement in Australia, by a combination of free and convict settlers, there existed a degree of European based xenophobia towards anyone who either looked or dressed differently; but familiarity, liberal values, and a broadly democratic view of life have tempered misconceptions.

Australia is proud of its strong and unshakable friendships with people of varying religious beliefs, including those encompassed by the large monotheistic religions Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. It needs to be acknowledged after all, that if we can believe in one single external power in our lives, it is possible to accept that we are all children from the same source. Many philosophers have suggested that ultimately ‘all is perception’; however, if that perception of our fellow human beings is one of ‘difference’ in terms of language, culture, dress, and beliefs, then we are presented with the challenge to ensure that these differences do not create the sort of divisions that lead to a ‘ghetto’ response that is sadly all too often one of the consequences of such differences.

There is beauty in diversity and diversity in beauty. This beauty is further enhanced in the human experience if all people in the world agree to differ amicably with a sense of respect for different views, or more simply put, “agree to disagree.” What a beautiful world that would be to live in. Finally, it may be said that the achievement of cultural and interfaith harmony begins with the necessary education that enables us to recognize that whatever differences there are, these must not cause divisions and unfounded suspicions. Differences are something to be embraced rather than feared; they give life a special richness that would be absent if everyone was the same. Above all, along with viewing love as a bond between people, we are bound to recognize love as an ingredient for human tolerance and harmony.

References

• Ganter, R. 2008. Muslim Australians: The Deep Histories of Contact. Journal of Australian Studies, 32(4), 482–483.
• Koleth, E. 2010-11. Multiculturalism: a review of Australian policy statements and recent debates in Australia and overseas, Parliament of Australia, Research Paper No.6, pp. 3-41.
• Kurti, P. 2013. Multiculturalism and the Fetish of Diversity. CIS policy monographs 138: Centre for Independent Studies (Australia)
• Ozdowski, S. 2012. “Australian Multiculturalism: the roots of its success.” Third International Conference on Human Rights Education: Promoting Change in Times of Transition and Crisis, The Jagiellonian University: Krakow, Poland.
• Reynolds, H. 1987. Frontier: Aborigines, settlers and land. Sydney: Allen – Unwin.
• Stephenson, P. 2007. The outsiders within: Telling Australia’s indigenous-Asian story. Sydney, Australia: University of New South Wales Press Ltd

Sarahsi’s commentary on this incident is quite thoughtful: “The judge must pay extreme attention to this matter because of the following saying of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him: ‘The noble one should not be hopeful for your favor, nor should the weaker despair of your unfair treatment.’ If the noble one is positioned in the front, he or she may raise hopes for the judge’s favoring them, which will dishearten the weaker who will be concerned of a possible injustice incurred on them.” (Sarahsi 1983, 61)

Let us consider this incident. An ordinary citizen, who happens to be a Christian, complains and files a case against the Muslim President of the country without any concern of the consequences. The Chief Justice of the fantastic Abbasid Empire is Imam Abu Yusuf, the great jurist of the Hanafi school of thought, second only to Imam Azam. He hears both parties without being able to bring them to the same level of seating, for he is too shy to ask the Caliph to rise up from where he is and stand next to the plaintiff. This would normally be perceived as a minor, even insignificant lapse; but the judge never forgets this for his entire life, and considers it his most grievous error. In fact, it so grieves him, it is the one lapse he asks God to forgive him for. On the other hand, Sarahsi’s comment is also worth analysis, as he does not deem this incident an insignificant one, but takes a very meticulous approach when he says, “The judge must pay extreme attention to this matter.” We should also keep in mind that this incident is not narrated in a fictional work of stories or legends, but in one of the fundamental sources of Hanafi jurisprudence, and this makes the incident even more significant and makes it sufficient to reflect, singlehandedly, Islam’s very accommodating and tolerant policy towards non-Muslims.

Forbearance, or tolerance, is kindheartedness without expecting anything in return, and it is more comprehensive than a mere word or slogan in Islamic terminology. It is an injunction in the religion, as it is firmly established by Divine revelation and explained by the Prophet. This duty upon believers has taken a material form in the Age of Happiness, during the reign of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, and throughout fourteen centuries of Islamic civilization. It is a product of the eternal and universal faith of Islam.

The Qur’an raised the columns of forbearance upon the Islamic foundations of life, universe, and mankind. Oneness is an attribute to God, and God alone; whereas all of creation is a manifestation of multiplicity, diversity, and differences. The basis of Islamic tolerance is that justice is obligatory. The Qur’anic description of God is “the Lord of the worlds,” the Lord of all mankind (Fatiha 1:1). As a result of this rationale, Islam embraces all the heritages of prophethood sent to all nations.

The Qur’an confirms the truthful acts of those who followed past prophets, corrects their faults or introduces new commandments (Maidah 5:48; Al Imran 3:3-4; A’raf 7:157-158).

Tolerant and just conduct towards non-Muslims was not only observed in the early days of Islam, but also in the following centuries. The Ottomans, from their onset in the late thirteenth century, particularly stand out for their political character. They prioritized avoiding internal conflicts with other principalities in Asia minor, and focused more on expanding westward to annex Byzantine towns. Their engagements with the non-Muslim people of these towns were never solely based on warfare and military power; instead, they cultivated relations based on fair treatment and tolerance. This diplomacy of fairness and forbearance paved the way for Orhan Bey (d. 1362) to have the gates of Bursa opened to him in peace in 1326 (Neşri 1983, 67; Akgündüz 1999, 430; Ihsanoğlu 1999, 422).

There is an overwhelming consensus among historians that the Ottomans were able to expand their territories in Asia Minor and the Balkans not only through military means but also through many social and ethical factors. Otherwise it is impossible to hold so many different ethnicities, with different faiths and languages, united (Eryılmaz 1990, 24). Sultan Mehmed II’s declaration on non-Muslims following the conquest of Istanbul is exemplary in terms of religious liberties, as he recognized the people’s freedom to worship in their own tradition; to conduct ceremonies as they did before; to travel freely; that their properties, shops, groves, farms, families, servants, and slaves were inviolable; that there was going to be no forced conversion to Islam; that their boys would not be conscripted; that they could choose their own community leaders; and that they would not be forced to work without compensation (Akgündüz 1999, 430; Ihsanoğlu 1999, 422-3).

The Ottoman policy on non-Muslims was mostly inspired from a judgment derived from a saying of the Prophet: “They (non-Muslims) have the same rights as we Muslims do; they are liable to the same duties as we Muslims are” (lahum ma lana wa alayhim ma alayna).

These rights and liberties the Ottomans recognized for the non-Muslim community become even more meaningful when compared with the situation in Europe during the same period of history. Bernard Lewis was visiting Turkey in the 1990s. In an interview for TRT (Turkish national network), the reporter asked him to comment on why, in the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, there is almost no record of Turkish travelers in Europe, whereas there were quite a number of European travelers who travelled across the Ottoman territories. I am summarizing Lewis’ answer as follows: “In those centuries there was no obstacle for Europeans to travel in the Ottoman land, for the Ottoman government was a state of rule and law. Europeans could visit the country on a visa (musta’man), travel, and follow up on their business freely. The travelers were of different religions, but they could freely gather with their co-believers or the locals who spoke their own language and hold services in their places of worship. They did not feel homesick or alienated. On the other hand, however, a Muslim could no way dare to visit a European country in those centuries without forsaking his life. Fanaticism was at its peak in Europe.”

The Ottomans had almost no competition in championing the freedom of religious belief and practice as a cornerstone of social order. The Ottomans also had non-Muslim groups represented in the parliament as ministers and at other senior levels; there were sometimes almost as many as fifty non-Muslim members of parliament, especially in the nineteenth century.

A more recent event was when Assyrian Christians, in the city of Mardin, had to confront the Ottoman state in 1915. Following the internal conflicts between Muslims and Armenians during World War I, in which the Tashnak and Hinchak groups of Armenians massacred Turkish villages, the Union and Progress government of the Ottoman state passed a decision to send all Armenian citizens – with the exception of those residing in Istanbul – into exile. Despite the fact that Assyrian Christians were not involved in any of those incidents, state officers in Mardin wanted to send them into exile too, simply because they were also Christians. In the chaotic environment of war, murder and violence followed this decision, and Assyrians from Midyat armed themselves and gathered in the village of Aynverd (Gulgozu). They did not obey calls to concede their weapons, for they did not trust the state’s army. Shaikh Fethullah Hamidi, of the Mardin region, announced a religious ruling that it would not be lawful according to Islam to harm Assyrians, and that their lives, properties, and honor were inviolable. He further communicated with state officers and, after three months of persistent efforts, secured a warrant of safety for the Assyrians. Assyrians never forgot his selfless stance and hard work, and as a sign of appreciation, they hang his picture next to their patriarch in the Mardin Deyruzzaferan Patriarchate.

Inspired by these ideas, Fethullah Gülen, one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in 2013,” and the Hizmet Movement, which has developed around this thought and guidance, are trying to reflect the same spirit of dialogue among different nations, religions, and cultures around the world. Born out of Turkey, this movement is now active in around 140 countries. Their outreach extends to all walks of life, regardless of differences, and their achievements raise our hopes that the world can once more experience a time of tolerance and coexistence, at least to the same degree, if not higher, as in the historical examples described in this article.

Dr. Yildirim is a professor of Qur’anic exegesis in the School of Divinity, Fatih University, Istanbul.

References

• Akgündüz, Ahmet, Said Öztürk. 1999. Bilinmeyen Osmanlı, Istanbul: Osmanlı Araştırmaları Vakfı Yayınları.
• Eryılmaz, Bilal. 1990. Osmanlı Devletinde Gayrimüslim Tebaanın Yönetimi, Istanbul: Risale Yayınları.
• Gibbons, Herbert Adams. 1998. Osmanlı imparatorluğunun Kuruluşu, Translated by R. Hulusi (Özdem), Istanbul: 21.Yüzyıl Yay.
• Hamidi, Muhammed Sadık. 2002. Mardini Es-Seyyid Eş-Şeyh Hamid Evlad ve Torunları, Istanbul,.
• Ihsanoğlu, Ekmeleddin. 1999. Osmanlı Devleti Tarihi I-II, Istanbul: Zaman Gazetesi Yayınları.
• Serahsî, Şemsu’l-eimme. 1983. el-Mebsut, Istanbul: Çağrı Yayınevi.

How generous of us. How condescending, actually! It implies that I can bear up under the difference which is exemplified in the other: I won’t criticize you openly or make comments, but deep down, I know you to be “different” and myself to be virtuous and probably superior. I may catch myself, when speaking of someone I actually do not like, saying politely: “Well, she’s different.” With that comment, I am off the hook. I refrain from telling you I reject this person. But “different” here may support a polite tolerance, yet it harbors an inner rejection.

So can we count tolerance a virtue? Perhaps developing tolerance is a stepping stone to something deeper? It might be the beginning of wisdom and exemplify a necessary patience with what feels painful, uncomfortable, unfamiliar, possibly frightening, in fact “foreign” to us. “Unfamiliar,” literally means: Not of my family. I am ill at ease with this because I do not know it. It is not part of my family, my tribe, my beliefs, my language, my religion, my race. In the spirit of tolerance, I might begin to open myself to tasting, hearing, learning something about that which is not “ours.” It is a beginning, but it still holds fast to the comfort of what it knows and only tolerates what it cannot fully accept.

Still, we have all had the expansive experience of traveling outside our zones of comfort and making a new relationship. We have launched a friendship with someone who seems unlike us.

An obviously poor man has taken charge of the garden plot next to mine in our neighborhood community garden. Perhaps he is homeless? He rattles up to the garden on a dilapidated bicycle. His clothes are worn and he has a scruffy look. His nails are dirty and that might be because he has been working his plot. I sense a certain unease in myself as we scratch the soil in our plots. Part of me fears him. That might be because I feel guilty about the growing number of homeless who make camps under the overpasses in my neighborhood. I can let my mind race with objections: They might bring disease. They certainly clutter the surroundings with litter. What if, in their need, they take what they want from yards and sheds? And the police told us recently they found a cache of machetes, sticks and knives in the park behind us. Oh, I can build dungeons in the sky as fast as anyone.

But to be honest, deep down, I would dread being homeless myself and in this economy… my mind races. How much of this is all our responsibility? Other members of the community garden, I notice, walk well out of his way. Sometimes they whisper to one another making comments about their discomfort.

But this is, after all, a Community garden! What does that really mean. If you sign up and pay the nominal fee to tend a plot and use the garden tools, this man has a right to be here. So the gardeners put up a front of tolerance. “We shall see. We’ll give him a chance.”

Tolerance invites us to stand before the unfamiliar and allow-but it still has no relationship to the ability to be empathic. Empathy is a vulnerable frame of being. It is to feel with what is “other” or different. Tolerance does not yet stand in the shoes of the other, knowing exactly what it feels like to be that person, living into a sense of that person’s culture, situation, history, biology, with those talents, bearing those wounds or offering those gifts.

Empathy would be the greater quality to embrace and cultivate in ourselves if we want to conduct real dialogue. Empathy is a quality that comes with maturity, practice, humility, a vulnerable openness and, of course, prayer. There is nothing guarded, “tolerant” or superior about it.

“Hey!” Two of us greet the man one morning as we hoe our plants. What’s your name? What have you just planted there? I make a point of walking over there and taking responsibility for my own feelings, I try to make contact with the fellow devoid of my prejudices. I am not an extroverted, chatty person to begin with, so it takes a concerted effort on my part to walk over there, discuss our gardens, and share our experiences.

Dempsey is his name. He does indeed live at the homeless shelter downtown and bikes up hill here to work his plot. He has lost the place he once lived. There is a story hiding in him. Turns out he knows quite a bit about the soil and gardening. He introduces me to his beloved collards. I show him my chard and spinach. Eventually we share some of our produce and though I do not take a shine to his collards, no matter how I try, I feel somehow honored by his generosity.

He has a plan. Even a vision. If he can grow enough produce, he will bring it to the kitchens at his shelter. As a kid, he had gardens which he and his mom tended. When everything in a row turns ripe and ready at once, it is quite an armful and he would like to make a contribution to his shelter. He has more plans. There is some land at the back of the shelter that, if he can convince them, he would like to turn into gardens that the homeless can help cultivate. Right now it is just a dumping ground for old bottles and litter.

“Of course, we’d need to contain the kitchen waste for compost first to get some soil. Gardening is more about making good soil than about growing plants!”

Before long, I am hearing amazing things from Dempsey. What if I had avoided him in my fear, guilt, and prejudice?

I think about my feelings against his reality. When we were young and growing up, we all made choices: We chose this over that, we chose right over wrong. We chose right over left and light over dark. We learned not to talk to strangers or to walk in certain neighborhoods. All the world is split in halves and with our choices we made judgments to match. We learned to define ourselves in a certain way, convinced that we have chosen the better part and have left “the other,” the misguided, the sinful, the messy, and unenlightened behind. This is how we formed our identity. With this we were approved of by our families and accepted by our tribe. It was, perhaps, a necessary developmental process.

In time, we may become so comfortable in this identity that it takes wisdom and maturity to discover that the world isn’t so black and white as we would like to define it. Our “black and white mentality” is often acted out literally. Here in America, we have suffered and visited great suffering on people of color deeming white to be more worthy than black. Getting stuck at this stage of development has literally given advantage, education and wealth to whites and this on the backs of those we first imported as slaves to our country and then continued to enslave in our intolerance, injustice and rejection.

Everywhere in the world, we have seen these simplistic conflicts bloom and fester causing injustice, war, and dreadful human misery. Tolerance, then, might be the first step to healing an unjust society but then, it has to develop further, into a true virtue.

Empathy-that true virtue-allows us to viscerally feel with the other and learn a third way which stands over and above the simplicity of a merely “black and white” mentality. Perhaps fundamental rights and wrongs may well be necessary to growing up and learning to become someone.

But fundamentalism is essentially an unripe process in becoming whole, holy, and healthy. It is a spiritual and psychological immaturity. Becoming whole, empathic with “the other” and more than merely “tolerant” of the other requires that we make friends with the deepest part of our own inner selves first. The dark aspects of our own unconscious, which lie under our conscious choices and awareness, are alive and well and sometimes pop out in actions, prejudices, paranoia, and selfish behaviors that actually shock us, surprising ourselves! Where did THAT come from? The impromptu snub? That slip-of-the-tongue? Getting to know what you’d rather repress in yourself takes that washing, even symbolic washing, which takes off the accretions of only “looking good.” To reach into our depth we ask for the graces of God and the courage to know ourselves.

Dempsey proves to be a gifted gardener. Unlike many of us city-slickers who find the idea of gardening a nice, romantic concept, Dempsey knows how to lean into his work and stick with it. He puts a hand to our compost pile and gives me information on the chemistry of compost. He LOVES the compost. And I begin to be enamored with the beauty of this transforming pile of brush and leaves as they become mulch and then good, black earth. It takes time. It takes patience. The vegetable scraps and brush, the kitchen scraps that we reject and find, in fact, revolting as they mold and decompose, become, in time, something so rich and beautiful that I hold a palm full in my hand and run it through my fingers. Dempsey laughs at me. He knows that I have come around. I encourage him to share his knowledge at our garden meetings. Dempsey becomes a valuable member of the garden. And he becomes a friend.

Like the compost, I dig deep into my own unconscious and all that I have deemed objectionable, I take into my awareness. I get to know myself a little more. I get to appreciate what I otherwise throw out and bury out of sight-out of my consciousness-and I find it necessary as the very “ground of my being.” It is a spiritual, a holy exercise. Also the parts of society that I might only tolerate, I take into my awareness and with prayer and God’s grace, I watch the rejected become a valuable source and a piece of God’s holy plan and puzzle.

Richard Rohr, OFM put it this way:

With prayer we change sides from the inside-from a power position to the position of vulnerability and solidarity, which gradually changes everything. Because now we are allowing ourselves to change and grow!
Once we are freed from our paranoia, from the narcissism that thinks we are the center of the world, or from our belief that thinks our rights and dignity have to be defended before other people’s rights and dignity, only then can we finally live and act with any justice or truth. Once these blockages are taken away from us-and that is what prayer does-then we just have to be offered a few guiding statements on social justice or other thorny issues-and we tend to get it for ourselves. We start being drawn by love…

For it is common practice in the human condition to take everything we fear, hate, deny about ourselves and “throw it in the waste bin.” We have, unwittingly, put “the other” in that same place of rejection and waste.

On the other hand, we also project everything we admire onto “the hero” as well. The adolescent makes heroes of the athlete, the rock star, the film star, the super model and decorates her bedroom with their posters. Meanwhile, the adults lean on their gurus, their preachers, their wise men, their favorite politicians and hope to vote in their hero as president and savior-of-the-nation. Our heroes, just like our shadow figures about whom we are passionate, are really aspects of ourselves which we are invited to come to know. These are abilities, virtues, talents, beauties, braveries, and wisdoms that we have not yet met in our own deepest selves but have “found” by projecting them on our heroes. What national leader can be the savior that delivers us from debt, from our enemies, from hunger? Over and over and at every election, we project on “the man who would be king,” and within months, because he is merely human, the populace has become disenchanted if not duped!

Samuel, in Hebrew Scripture, warns of turning away from God in favor of a king (1 Samuel 8). Israel wanted a leader like the other nations. But Samuel issues a final warning (1 Samuel 12:14) “If God’s people will remain faithful to God’s Commandments” and keep God as their ruler.

When our loves and our hates are visceral and passionate, we must take these deep emotions as invitations to examine our SELVES first. By truly “knowing ourselves” deeply, we are able to develop empathy-knowing “the other.” Then we learn to accept the dark and light aspect of our deepest self. We learn to embrace everyone. Our tolerance becomes empathy, even love! Rumi’s teaching often showed that love and empathy is the very path to spiritual growth and insight. Broadly tolerant of every person and all faiths he says:

Whoever you may be, come
Even though you may be
An infidel, a pagan, or a fire-worshipper, come
Our brotherhood is not one of despair
Even though you have broken
Your vows of repentance a hundred times, come.

Life is certain to dish up for us, family members, neighbors, people, situations, religions, countries-myriad experiences that are really invitations to rattle us out of our cozy dualistic and judgmental lives. May we grow surely and bravely from being merely tolerant into fully human beings who are steeped in empathy. Every dualist split that rends us apart personally and tears us one from the other would be healed. The same God reigns over and above us all. The same God guides us. The same God loves us all. The same God is the very ground of our being. Tolerance is only a start on the path to love and empathy.

Gertrud Mueller Nelson is an author, artist and retired teacher. She has illustrated and written nine books. She lives in California.

‘Peaceful coexistence is the most important project of our era. But we cannot do it alone or in isolation; we must do it together.’

The world has become very small.

Mass communications, mass travel, and economic interdependence have created a contemporary world in which we as individuals and groups no longer can live in isolation from other groups as well as we could have in previous periods. Nations and groups of people who barely knew of each other now see each other’s lives and worlds in living color and in real time through television and the internet. Governments who counted on secrecy and submission just a few years ago now find themselves humbled, bewildered, and even overthrown through mass communications that broadcast their tyrannical deeds—and the bravery of those who resist them—to the entire world. Regions who thrived in their own prosperity in isolation from the poverty and stagnation of other regions now find their economies racked by volatility as globalism ties the purse strings of world commerce together into complicated knots.

The world has become small, and we are with each other—knowing of, affecting, and interacting with each other—more than we ever have in the history of the world. And we are not the same. Yes, we are all human beings. Yes, all of us are subject to the universal conditions of human existence like uncertainty, change, loss, and death. But how we deal with those conditions and what we make them mean depends in large part on our distinctive cultures, backgrounds, languages, and histories. Herein lie the differences in the human family. We do not think the same. We don’t pray to the same gods. We don’t choose the same cultural values. We don’t share specific histories. We interpret the world, and ourselves in it, in very different ways.

Given these differences, how can we all live together? Is peaceful coexistence possible globally, regionally, or even within one family? If so, what are the necessary components that create it? In other words, what are the preconditions—philosophically, socially, politically, culturally, or otherwise—for peaceful coexistence among different people? These are powerful and complex questions that require asking even more questions in order to answer.

First we must ask questions of history.

Have we as human beings ever lived together peacefully? Have people of very different faiths, for example, ever lived with each other for a sustained period of time without seeking to oppress or eradicate each other? Answering these questions requires a significant and thorough study of world history.

If we determine that sustained peaceful coexistence has been achieved in certain situations—for example, under the Ottomans in the fifteenth century, or in thirteenth-century Spain—we must further determine what factors allowed that coexistence to occur. What were the specific conditions—economic, political, social, cultural, etc.—that made that coexistence possible? These conditions and factors are myriad; to distinguish them so that they can be meaningful to us today requires intensive analysis from highly skilled and knowledgeable individuals.

Once distinguished, can the conditions that made peaceful coexistence possible elsewhere and in a different era be transported to the present time, into a current situation of conflict and violence? Can the conditions be recreated today, the present time, although taken from the past? This may seem simple, but it is not. People change from era to era. Notions of what is permissible, moral, and just change over time even within one culture, much more across cultures. What worked in a previous period, in terms of a conception of societal harmony and justice, cannot simply be picked up and moved into a new era with different notions of morality, truth, society, etc. Things must be translated first, and even before being translated, we must determine if the factors in question can be translated at all. Worldviews may have changed so much in the intervening centuries that they no longer work as viable concepts for today.

If certain conditions and factors that generate peaceful coexistence can be translated from the past into today’s world, they must then be implemented socially, culturally, politically, economically, and legally. In many instances, this will require a fundamental overhaul of current socio-political systems. Transformations of this nature are daunting simply because of their sheer magnitude. Moreover, such societal transformations contain within them the seeds for violence and injustice. They rarely happen without conflict. Implementation of new societal structures must happen in a way that minimizes or omits opportunities for breakdown, violence, and retribution from those who may feel left out or trampled upon by the changes. Otherwise, the implementation of a new system for peaceful coexistence ends up perpetuating yet more violent conflict.

These are the questions we must ask of history. But we cannot stop there. We must also ask questions of the religions.

What is the general stance of our religious traditions to those who do not share its beliefs and commitments? Does it demand eradication of all contrary belief systems and the people who propagate them? Or does it request accommodation of ‘the stranger,’ or those who believe and live differently? In short, do people of faith ground themselves into patterns of tolerance or intolerance as they root themselves in their faith traditions?

These are difficult questions to answer because the religions themselves, as historical entities that grow and change over time, sometimes seem to have multiple ways of being with regard to peaceful coexistence. Over the centuries, adherents of the largest two religions in the world—Christianity and Islam—have lived both peacefully and non-peacefully with each other, and with people of other religions they encountered. Certainly, the teachings of both religions encourage peaceful coexistence in their respective sacred texts and traditions. However, both these religions also have suffered violent expression in the hands of those who either ignore the teachings of coexistence, or twist the teachings to justify violence and terror.

Whatever our religious traditions were intended to be, the fact is that historically they have been used to perpetrate some of the worst imaginable violence ever created in the human family. And we have to face this hard fact with courage, and with resolve to enlist our religious traditions as major players in the project of peaceful coexistence.

The potential for religious conflict in society is the chief reason why societies that have achieved peaceful coexistence to any extent champion religious tolerance as a chief civic virtue, and they actually implement that virtue into society culturally and legally. Given the diverse and absolute claims of many religious and moral traditions, tolerance is really all we can ask of people. We cannot, in a truly pluralistic society, expect morally committed or devout persons to embrace or to celebrate practices that they, due to their faith or ethics, consider to be sinful, heretical, or abhorrent. We cannot expect them to acknowledge the legitimacy of gods, or modes of worship, or ways of life they consider to be false. To expect this in the realm of religion is to be fundamentally intolerant. We cannot advocate, in the name of tolerance, a society that tolerates everything but certain forms of traditional religious or moral conviction.

Tolerance, then, is the capacity to put up with or to accommodate ideas, beliefs, and behaviors that one finds deeply problematic, and is society’s most essential civic virtue, especially in societies as ethnically, religiously, and racially diverse as many countries are becoming in this period of globalization. Daily life in such societies simply will not move along if the citizenry cannot practice basic tolerance. Of course, simply gritting our teeth and grudgingly putting up with others we don’t like or with whom we disagree is the low-water mark of societal growth. Ideally, we would grow to a place of greater understanding and appreciation for those who are radically different from us, even if we still do not accept or agree with their beliefs or practices. Sometimes, however, basic tolerance, especially in matters of religion, is the best we can do.

These are the questions we must ask of our religions. But we cannot stop here, either. We must also ask questions of ourselves.

We must search ourselves and examine our hearts. Are we really committed to living together with people who are different from us? Do we really accept the fact that we as people will never all believe, think, pray, live, or act the same—and that we just have to deal with it? Or do we resent these ‘facts on the ground’ and spend our efforts trying to coerce others or force them into changing to be more like us? Or, having given up on making other people like us, do we isolate ourselves into enclaves of sameness and construct the daily arc of our lives so that we don’t have to encounter many people who are different from us?

Part of the reason why achieving peaceful coexistence is so challenging has to do with individuals. All the legal, cultural, and societal structures that support peaceful coexistence may be in place; however, they will fail to show results unless one thing is true—people genuinely must want to live in peace. This is not a given. While we may think, and commonly say, that all people really want is to live in peace, this is not true. Not everyone wants to live in peace. Often people put qualifiers to the prospects for peace in their lives and worlds. For example, they say, ‘I want peace in my region, but not if it means giving up any of our land.’ Or, ‘I want peace in the region, but we cannot allow attacks on our national honor.’ In other words, we say we want peace, but not if it means we have to give up something that we deem more important than peace. Many of us value other things more than peace.

Even in our personal lives, in our relationships with family and friends, we often keep grudges and enmities in place for years and years despite many opportunities to do away with them and create peace. Why? Because we would have to give up something that we value more than peace, in order to achieve peace in that situation—a feeling of being right, a sense of superiority, the perverse joy we take in condemning other people or groups, and other things. We have to let go of these types of things to create peace, yet we often prefer them to peace. So, the conflict and tension endure year after year, and all the while we are saying, to ourselves and to others, that we want peace. We are not being honest about the situation. We value other things more than peace.

Ultimately, achieving peaceful coexistence at the individual, interpersonal level has to do with a person’s capacity for difference. How comfortable are we with people who are different from us? Do we feel threatened by them? Do we feel nervous around them? Or, can we be relaxed and comfortable within ourselves even when surrounded by people who believe, look, and act differently than us? Today’s global world demands all of us to expand our inner capacities for difference, so that we are not easily threatened by people who are not exactly like us. All of us must stretch our comfort zones beyond their current boundaries.

These are the hard, searching questions we must ask ourselves.

Only when we give ourselves authentically to these questions with a view toward creating sustained, peaceful coexistence will we have a future worth living for. Moreover, all of us must do this work together—religious and secular, liberals and conservatives—all of us. Otherwise, the forces of globalization that have made our world smaller will bring with it new and more barbaric forms of hatred, oppression, and violence.

Achieving peaceful coexistence is, then, the most important project of our era. And we must give ourselves to it wholly, with our fullest capacities for knowledge and understanding, with our truest intentions for truth and justice, and with our bravest strengths in order to journey through the challenges and difficulties that the process entails. We most certainly can do it. But we cannot do it alone or in isolation; we must do it together.