Aligarh, India
1. Divisive current issues affecting Muslims and the West
(i) Perception of denial of justice to Muslim peoples by governments in the West, led by the United State of America, epitomized by the long suffering of the Muslim Palestinians is the most divisive issue causing conflict between them.
(ii) The other divisive issue is the Western attitude towards Islam in general and Mohammad, the Prophet, in particular–exemplified by the Western liberal defence of Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, the publication of commissioned cartoons of the Prophet, and now Pope Benedict XVI approvingly quoting hate-speech against Islam of the period of the old Crusade characterizing it as “evil and inhuman”.
(iii) Muslim lack of modernization and their bigotry and fanaticism–expressed in their attitude to women and lack of tolerance of dissent, is also a source of divergence of the two cultural mainstreams.
2. Shared Values holding the possibility of uniting Muslims and the peoples in the West
(i) Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms faith in equality of all human beings in dignity and rights. Being endowed with reason and conscience, humans are required to develop fraternal feelings towards one another. Common struggle to promote the values of freedom, equality and fraternity, and concern for all-embracing value of justice hold the potential to unite Muslims and the peoples in the West.
(ii) Muslims and peoples in the West affirm faith in an Almighty — All Merciful and Caring and Loving God/ Allah, to whom all humans are individually accountable, which constitutes core of the common Abrahamic Tradition. Accommodating seemingly divergent traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam–within the Great Tradition of “One God, One Mankind” can be a great source of unity between the Muslims and the West.
Dr. Iqbal A. Ansari,
Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs
Aligarh, India