Forum advocates religious acceptance, co-existence
2008-10-17
The Second International Forum for Dialogue among Religions ended Thursday (October 9th) in Tunis. Participant Iqbal Gharbi concludes that dialogue among religions is an "urgent" need, to avoid wars and victims, and women must participate.
Interview by Jamel Arfaoui for Magharebia in Tunis – 17/10/08
 [Jamel Arfaoui] Professor Iqbal Gharbi advocates religious tolerance in a globalised world that she says fuels stereotypes and distrust of others. |
At the conclusion of last week's International Forum for Dialogue among Religions, participants called on people of differing faiths to exercise religious tolerance and to co-exist peacefully with others. Dr. Iqbal Gharbi, Professor of Sharia and Religious Principles at Tunisia's Zitouna University, who attended the forum, spoke with Magharebia about the need for interfaith dialogue in promoting peace and stability.
Magharebia: Why another conference on harmony and concord among religions?
Iqbal Gharbi: Dialogue among religions is still an urgent issue for us so that we can avoid harsh religious and ethnic wars, such as the wars in Iraq, Sudan, and Lebanon, and hidden wars in several other countries, which drain people's energies and wealth.
The organisation of such conferences is a good practice that the long-standing Zitouna University has been upholding with the assistance of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. We live in a world full of promises and threats. Globalisation, as much as it accelerates harmony, also leads to reclusion of identity, phobia of stereotypes and fear of melting into the other. These irrational fears, of course, often lead to withdrawal, introversion and hatred of the other, ideologies of ethnic purity and the hateful practices of ethnic cleansing.
Magharebia: What is the role of religion in today's world?
Gharbi: Religion, or the spiritual dimension, is necessary today. It's a huge symbolic and moral force that can be employed to present moral dilemmas to the world's decision-makers.
Spiritual leaders can play the role of counter-authority to confront the logic of production for the purpose of profit rather than for the purpose of serving humans. There are currently 120 million children starving and 200 million more deprived of education. The challenges today are global in nature and have gone beyond the regional borders. Environmental dangers also transcend boundaries and pose threats to all humankind.
The true war that deserves our total involvement is not the war against Jews, Christians, Shiites or others. Rather, it is the war of civilisation against barbarianism; the war of culture against modern savagery.
Magharebia: What are the prospects for dialogue today?
Gharbi: Dialogue among religions has no meaning without a review of history. It shall also be meaningless without involvement in self-dialogue, i.e. openness to the multiple interpretations of Islam. Those two conditions are necessary to advance to doctrinal maturity.
Dialogue among religions will also be pointless without the acknowledgement of the rights of all religious minorities, the endorsement of full citizenship rights of those minorities and the adoption, without any reservations, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which acknowledges religious freedom.
Magharebia: Is there a role for Muslim women in the dialogue among religions?
Gharbi: Women in general are characterised by emotive intelligence, which is a type of intelligence that is different from pure intelligence. This type of intelligence values intuition, feelings, emotions, and sentiments. Therefore, we find that women enjoy sharp sensitivity to all forms of ugliness, injustice and tyranny. Women have an instinctive feeling about existence. The instincts of life are supposed to prevail over the instincts of death and dissolution. The spiritual dimension makes us go past the perverted instrumental rationality and reinstitute dreams and utopia without waiving the gains of progress.
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amen Posted 2008-10-18
At last, the voice of a new Muslim. But what does this voice represent within the Muslim, lost and angry majority? I am not very optimistic about the future.
Ben Hadjali Anis Posted 2008-10-18
Bravo Miss Iqbal Gharbi for this interview! It seems essential to me that we deal with the foundations of these worldwide problems, which are often very similar in and common to the various regions of the world. We must conceive of each other as human beings and understand what unites us instead of stubbornly repeating what makes us different. It is thanks to this that we will be able to pay attention to our mutual value and be more open and peaceful.
مختار الدبابي Posted 2008-10-20
It is easy for any person to talk about rejection of violence by religion. However, it is difficult, especially for those who belong to the Islamic space, to present an approach from within the Islamic text of this hypothesis. We do not say that Islam is a religion of violence. But we say that historical Islamic interpretations are still forming a basis for violence. Even if we are not surprised if these interpretations are adopted by extremists who practise violence on that basis, we are surprised to see that some intellectuals, who say that they are enlightened and different, keep on their escape to mystification and ambiguity. It is easy to say that Islam is against violence and that al-Qaeda does not belong to true Islam. However, where are the enlightened and jurisprudence interpretations presented by Hassan Hanafi, Mohamed Amara, Ali Harb and other authors and intellectuals who belong to the “enlightened and progressive” Islam and who promise us a “new and modern Islam”? The sister Professor Iqbal Gharbi explained water by water. She just reiterated, like others, old slogans. She voiced sentences which are unacceptable in the Arab Islamic arena. We say these words because some Arab Islamic intellectual symbols are accusing the other/West of being narrow-minded, does not accept difference, that it has alimented conflict trends and calls to extermination and “end of history”. Henceforth, they consider that it is thwarting the dialog of civilizations and religions. It is very important to bring modern Islamic interpretations which convince the Arab Islamic space that the other is sacred in our text and that he is not an opponent. He can even be a friend and partner. But we must first of all believe in accepting difference within our internal space. We must stop this odd obsession about blood and passion for fatwa accusing of infidelity. The World conference of Muslim scholars have fallen in its last meeting in a “battle” of Sunna and Shiaa as if the Islamic world has no problems and concerns! Yes to the dialog of civilizations, yes to tolerance and openness and to all slogans raised by some of our intellectuals and authors in our faces day and night but they write their opposite and call for stumbling over them…But they should be part of an enlightenment and reform code beginning from the inside then extending to look for powers which believe in the same code on the opposite arena so that they will reach an alliance against the powers stumbling over them.
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