Islam and other religions: Difference between revisions

Views of monotheist religions

Main articles: People of the Book

Islam views itself as the culmination of the Judeo-Christian monotheist tradition. In this sense, Muslims do not consider these to be other religions. However, their primary difference with Jews and Christians has always been the refusal of either to acknowledge the prophetic mission of Muhammad and the divine origin of the Qur'an. A further theological difference separates Islam from Christianity, in that Muslims deny the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus.

A separate article exists on Islam and anti-Semitism.

Views of non-monotheist religions

In spite of Islam's implicit message of peace and its explicit tolerance of Judaism and Christianity, the rapid spread of the early Islamic empire was little different from the building of any other imperial power; through warfare, and for the purpose of gaining wealth from conquest. One of the earliest Muslim military campaigns was against the Christian Byzantine empire. This fact shows how easily the Qur'anic injunction to tolerate and respect Jews and Christians could be overlooked in practice. Conquest did not lead to forced conversion of the populace, which was in any case prohibited by the Qur'anic injunction that there was to be 'no compulsion in religion'. In fact, the imposition of the extra jizya tax on non-Muslim subjects gave the Muslim rulers a material incentive to preserve the religions of conquered people.

When Islam began to spread to regions like India, the Hindu worship of multiple gods and the prominent display of their images in temples may have reminded Muslims of pre-Islamic Arab practices. Qur'anic verses revealed in the context of Muhammad's war with the pagan Meccans may thus have provided justification for the imperial ambitions of some leaders; however, even in India mass conversions were not encouraged, and Hindus were ultimately given the tolerated religious minority status of dhimmi, even though they were obviously not monotheist.

The nature of conversions (whether forcible or voluntary) is a contentious political issue, but the fact that it happened in one way or another is obvious in the Indian subcontinent (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh), where 45% of the formerly Hindu and Buddhist population is now Muslim. Bengal provides a case-study for the complexity of conversion; it was generally overlooked as a frontier province far from the center of Mughal power. However, the activity of Sufi mystics led to a syncretic mixing of Islam and Hinduism in the region, which apparently persisted for centuries. During this period it would have been very difficult to classify local religious beliefs and practices as exclusively Hindu or Muslim or Buddhist, as elements of all these were combined. It seems to have been the rise of Muslim revivalist movements in the 19th century, which focused 'purifying' the Islamic practices of the region, that led to it becoming the definitively Muslim population that exists today in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, syncretic traditions such as Baul devotional music, which borrows both Muslim and Hindu religious images freely, persist even today.

The Islamic view of non-monotheistic ("People of the Book") religions differs among scholars, and also varies according to circumstance, time and place. While fundamentalists are often less tolerant, liberal movements within Islam often try to be more open-minded. Consequently, the relationship of Islam with Hinduism and other non-monotheist religions varied greatly according to the religious outlook of individual rulers. For example, in India the Mughal emperor Akbar, for example, was very tolerant towards Hindus, while his successor Aurangzeb was less so.

Tolerance vs. fundamentalism

Some claim that Eastern traditions like Hinduism and Buddhism, which supposedly believe all religions to be different paths to reach the same supreme truth or God, are inherently tolerant. They use this line of reasoning to assert that monotheist religions like Islam and Christianity believe that theirs is the only true word from the God, and are thus inherently intolerant. While such a one-sided generalization may be justified when talking of Islamic fundamentalism, it is not universally true. Many Muslims in multi-religious communities such as Indonesia and Bangladesh have a long history of religious tolerance and harmony. Furthermore, Hindu fundamentalism in India has shown itself to be very intolerant of religious minorities during the Godhra riots. Objectively it is obvious that no religious tradition can be inherently tolerant or intolerant; rather, these are simply descriptions of community behaviour, and can change radically with political circumstances.