Beyond interfaith toleration to interfaith cooperation: scriptural reasoning as a basis for common ground for good works

In many Muslim majority countries, the Muslims circumvent interfaith dialogue and simply expect the rest to conform to Muslim’ requirements and demands quietly. On the contrary, in Muslim minority countries, Muslims’ are scrambling to promote interfaith dialogue as means to find common ground, sympathy and understanding from people of faith. We should not and cannot any longer mistreat interfaith dialogue as a political means to an end and fail to see the value of its raison d’etre. Men of faith especially Abrahamic faiths share far more in common especially in their ethical vision of the world than what divides them. We must rise to God’s challenge and invitation to not only envision but be part of creating a better world. It is because of our personal relationship with our Creator, we welcome all peoples to promote a community of tolerance, inclusion, non-judgement, respect and above all a just society through socio-economic empowerment and opportunity. It is because of our faith we are kind, compassionate, know that all our action will be held accountable that become driven to make this world a better world. To transform our current pathetic reality where faith has little impact in the world, we must join faith with action. Enough talk of how our religion solves the problems of the world around us; up till now our faith creates more tensions, religious wars, conflict-ridden sectarianism rather than promote unity in diversity. It is only when we unite on common ethical ground that we can make a difference. As Moses had stood up against the Pharaoh, and Muhammad against the oppressive tribal system, let men of faith rise again together against oppression utilizing the concepts of tikkun olam and jihad fi sabillah. All men are children of God and so together and only together can we work to create a world that works for everyone. Keywords: interfaith dialogue, common ground, unity in diversity, action