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Your letters: Freedom and responsibility
Islam is a universal religion and its teachings are for all time
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slam is a universal religion and its teachings are for all time. It teaches communication with others and how to address the founders of other religions. It gives guidance on how to express differences of opinion.
It is obligatory for all Muslims to believe in all the true prophets of all the divine religions, including Jesus and Moses. The Holy Koran mentions them with great respect and Muslims around the world use “May Allah be pleased with him” after mentioning the name of any prophet.
Moreover, the Prophet Muhammad once said, “When a respected person of a people comes to you, give him respect”. This could be a golden principle for talking about all those who are dear to a people.
Muslims are bound to honor other prophets and also give great respect to their own Prophet Muhammad.
Surely no civilized person would speak of the Prophet Muhammad in a manner that hurts the feelings of 1.3 billion Muslims around the world.
The film Innocence of Muslims, which emerged from the US, and the caricatures from France have nothing to do with the pious life of the Prophet of Islam. It seems to be an intentional effort to provoke Muslims, which resulted in the killing of tens of precious lives and millions of dollars in material and non-material losses.
The civilized, international community should take such incidents very seriously. There has to be a visible effort to tackle such issues permanently, rather than just verbally condemning them. Freedom of expression should come with responsibility. Acts that cause disturbances and endanger world peace should be banned.
The UN could pass a resolution binding all nations to respect the founders of all religions.
More importantly, Muslims must follow the example of their Prophet. The Prophet Muhammad’s life is full of incidents where he was mocked and ridiculed but he always showed patience and tolerance. He never took revenge for any personal insult, rather he prayed for his enemy.
Remember this saying of Muhammad: Filth does not clean filth.
Violent reactions out of anger may quench the thirst of revenge for a while but they will eventually backfire on Muslims as a whole. Islam, as a religion, will get a bad name and only vested interests will ultimately benefit from that.
Muslims have a great responsibility to show the world the true face of Islam and its Prophet. There is a large number of people around the world who are unaware of the real teachings of Islam. They just see the actions of a handful of extremists and consider it Islam.
They need to know through our noble deeds that Islam is a peaceful and peace-loving religion and its Prophet is a “mercy for whole universe”.
Fazal-E-Mujeeb
Jakarta
