Islam: belief and practices

Prof. Dr. Hamid Bin Ahmad Al-Rifaie,

President of International Islamic Forum for Dialogue

 

Submitted for IARF 29th July 2002 – 2nd August 2002

 

Excellencies, colleagues, brothers and sisters,

Assalamu alaikum, peace be upon you,

 

I am so honoured and pleased to address you in this morning to present a summary about Islam.

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

All the praises and thanks to Allah, the Lord of the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. The only Owner of the Day of recompense, whom (alone) we worship. And whom (alone) we ask he help, guide us to the straight way.

·        Islam is a religion of the Almighty Allah (God), who has sent all prophets and messengers to convey it to the universals.

·        So Islam teaches Muslims to believe and respect all prophets and messengers of Allah.

·         Islam also teaches Muslims to believe and respect all the holy books of the Almighty Allah.

·        Islam teaches Muslims that Jesus – peace be upon him – will return back to establish the justice and peace among all people in the Earth according to teaching Islam.

·        Islam teaches Muslims that all prophets and messengers of Allah are brothers came to call on all creatures to believe, obey and worship one God, the God who has created them.

·        Islam prevents and prohibits cursing or attacking other religions or traditions.

·        The main bases of the Islamic belief are:

  1. belief in one and only God, and Mohamed is a prophet and messenger of Allah, the Almighty;
  2. performance the prayer five times day and night;
  3. paying the zakat, i.e. alms giving (taxes) to the poor and needy people;
  4. fasting Ramadan, one month in a year;
  5. rendering al-hajj (i.e. pilgrimage) to Mecca Al-Mukarramah (a holy city) in Saudi Arabia one time in life.

·        Islam in general consists of two main parts: Dogma and Law (Sharia).

I.                    Dogma represents the religious privacy of Muslim as every dogma represents the religious privacy of any one.

Islam has decided this problem with non-Muslims as side:

“To you be your religion and to me my religion”

II.                 Regarding Law (Sharia).

Law in Islam consists of two main parts:

First part pertains to the personal affairs such as: marriage, divorce and patrimony etc.

Islam has also decided this problem with non-Muslims as gave them the right to tackle their religious personal affair according to their religion’s rules.

The second part of Law pertains to common interests. Concerning this part: Islam has emphases that Muslim and non-Muslim are equal of interests without discrimination.

As above we think there is no problem of non-Muslim in Islam.

·        Islam call upon Muslims and non-Muslims to work together on the bases of the divine values in order to achieve the following goals:

1.      To assure that we are partners with the others in achieving the Divine task to build the earth and establish a just world order.

2.      To recognise that the cultural and religious diversity should encourage a real co – existence among the human societies.

3.      To emphasise that the human family’s unity affirms respect of the human brotherhood.

4.      To stress that the building of the Earth and establishing of the justice between the people without discrimination are a religious duty and civilisational requirement.

5.      To assure that the equitable complementarity between man and women in carrying their responsibilities assuring our adherence to God’s will.

6.      To emphasise that the family based on the legal marriage between man and woman is the basis of safe and civilised society.

7.      To assure that the religious and spiritual values are essential sources of the realisation of a better life of the human communities.

8.      To emphasise that the extremism and the terrorism are contrary to the spirit of religion.

9.      To recognise that the self-defence is a religious right and a sacred legal duty, so we consider that any linkage between self-defence and terrorism is kind of oppression.

10.  To stress that the balance between the advancement of the science and technology on one hand and religious and ethnical values on the other is a strong base to maintain the human dignity, environment, and safe human coexistence.

11.  To emphasise that the universality and globalisation are inseparable issues, whereas universality is values, principles, and systems; while globalisation is the managing systems of the interests of the human communities on a base of the just world order.

12.  To recognise that the universality without globalisation is just hopes, on the other hand the globalisation without fair universality turns into vanity and destruction.

13.  To assure that the dialogue between cultures and civilisations is a religious duty, civilisational requirement, and a safety necessity for safe coexistence among communities.

14.  To recognise that the religious does not urge hatred does not justify shedding innocent blood.

15.  To assure that Islam considers that who kills one soul without legal justification as if he kills all mankind, and whoever saves one person as if he saves all mankind.

16.  To address all those who kill or make war in God’s name, reminding them that the peace is the name of God!

17.  To address all those who use weapons to establish their interests; reminding them that the war is a journey with no return.

18.  To remind all that the bright side of the history – at the end – is made by the nice words not by the bullets.

19.  To warn all that the world peace today is threaten by a huge fire; it is the duty of anyone to pour at lest drops of water to extinguish the fire.

So, we are here in this respected meeting to speculate and discuss together our common challenges, and to find our common ground, which helps us to work together in order to achieve our joint benefits, justice, peace, human dignity and freedom.

Also we have to assure that Earth and environment in general is our common home we have to work together to keep it safe from pollution and corruption.

Finally, we have to emphasize that the divine values should be the base of the life order on the regional and international levels in order to achieve a safe-coexistence between human communities.

 

 

Press release  

Your Excellency,

Organisers at the IARF World Congress,

 

We are very glad and pleased to be here with you in this prestigious gathering of religious and spiritual leaders from all over the world in order to speculate and discuss the mutual religious values, to discuss the common ground to start our joint work for peace, justice, human dignity, human right, and safe co-existence among human communities and to keep the environment safe from pollution and corruption (as it is our common home). So we put forth the following points:

1.      We should not encroach upon doctrines of our religion, but to find common grounds of co-operation. As every religion has privacy values, which may not necessarily be the same in all of them.

2.      We have to focus on the general values of freedom and not details vis a vis freedom of belief and practising one’s religious tradition e.g. marriage, personal laws etc.

3.      We should focus today on the rights to be free and the right of self-defence of all oppressed people and we have to stand united against terrorism and tyranny.

4.       To focus that the human communities are one family, which has one job, has one message to human kind to understand each other to solve our common problems of economic, inequality, environmental pollution, poverty, education and health problems.

Budapest, 2nd August 2002

Signed:

Your Muslim colleagues: