Religious Liberty: Islamic Teachings

“And do not insult those they invoke other than Allah, lest they insult Allah in enmity without knowledge. Thus We have made pleasing to every community their deeds. Then to their Lord is their return and He will inform them about what they used to do.” (6: 109)

Respect for other faiths is an essential part of Islam as it should be for all faiths also. Respect for each other’s religion plays a vital role in maintaining peace at familial, social, environmental, national and international levels.

To each Muslim, liberty of religious belief and practice must be dear since tolerance is a vital part of Islamic faith. Religious liberty practiced in any society guarantees also liberty of scientific discussion within it and a tolerance of the views of others, so essential to the growth of science.

'Ethnic Cleansing' of Muslims in Central Africa

LIBREVILLE: "Ethnic cleansing" is being carried out against Muslim civilians in the Central African Republic, with international peacekeepers unable to prevent it, Amnesty International said on Wednesday. France's defence minister earlier called on international forces deployed in the Christian-majority country to put an end to attacks by the militias "by force if needed". Amnesty said it had documented at least 200 killings of Muslim civilians by Christian militia groups known as the anti-balaka, set up in the wake of the March 2013 coup by the mainly-Muslim Seleka rebellion. (Inset: Burning/looting of Muslim property and a mosque in PK 26 area, north of the capital Bangui in late January.© Amnesty International)

"Ethnic cleansing' of Muslims has been carried out in the western part of the Central African Republic, the most populous part of the country, since early January 2014," Amnesty International said in a report. "Entire Muslim communities have been forced to flee, and hundreds of Muslim civilians who have not managed to escape have been killed by the loosely organised militias known as anti-balaka." 

When the Qur'an spoke English

The earliest direct English translation of the holy book is a testament to its translator's resourcefulness

The first Muslim member of Congress assumed office in January 2007. For his swearing-in ceremony, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., chose to pledge on the Quran. The copy he used, specially loaned by the Library of Congress for the occasion, had once belonged to Thomas Jefferson. [Inset: The Qur'an once owned by Thomas Jefferson. Photo by  Haraz N. Ghanbari /AP] 

Why did Jefferson own a copy of the Quran? The third president was interested in Islam for many reasons, as Denise A. Spellberg explains in her book “Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an.” He was able to read the holy book of Islam in the first place, however, only thanks to a recent translation, the first direct one from Arabic into English, a copy of which he purchased as a law student in 1765. That translation, by a young English lawyer named George Sale, would prove to have an outsize role in the Western study and understanding of the Quran. 

European interest in Islam

Long before Europeans governed Muslim colonies, interest in Islam and its cultures ran high in Europe. Part of the reason was political. Three Muslim empires dominated large parts of Asia: the Ottomans in Anatolia, the Mediterranean and Arabia; the Safavids in Persia; and the Mughals in India.

These Muslim dynasties were not just powerful but were also admired for their refined arts and culture — music, poetry, gardens, ceramics and textiles. Moreover, books in Arabic offered knowledge of many fields to those who learned the language. Not just the sciences and philosophy but even Arabic literature enticed European translators. Thus, in 1704 a Frenchman first translated the “1001 Nights,” whose tales soon became an enduring classic of European as well as of Arabic letters.

Above all else, the religion of Islam itself seemed an especially compelling field of inquiry to a variety of European scholars and thinkers. How had a handful of Muslims emerged from the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century to conquer so much of the known world? This was one of the great questions of world history, as both the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire and the English historian Edward Gibbon agreed. In addition, philosophers and freethinking Christians deemed the central tenet of Islam, the unity of God, more rational than the mystery of the Christian Trinity. Thus, many different Europeans attributed singular importance to Islam and the language of its revelation, Arabic.