ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Islam and Religious Pluralism Foreword From the frying pan of the ‘Narrow-Minded, Dry, Holy Ones’ “tang nazari khoshk muqaddasan” into the fire of Hick’s Religious Pluralism Some years ago, in Brampton Canada, my Muharram majālis provoked the question: Where will Mother Teresa go – Heaven or Hell ?

This was in reaction to my submission challenging the notion of religious pluralism, which seemed to have found favour amongst members of the congregation, who as a result of their intellectual discussions within academia, appeared to have concluded that ‘all roads lead to Rome’. My deliberations with a number of such academic members of our community revealed their unawareness that the original concept of religious pluralism was a subtle defence to the doctrine of salvation through Christ.

Thereby, providing in Christianity, toleration for other religions. Essentially, the roots of religious pluralism lie in the development of political liberalism in eighteenth century Europe, which was reeling from the horrible tales of religious persecution. The Enlightened European thinkers of the time were reacting to religious intolerance, which had resulted in the history of sectarian wars to be avoided by all means.

Having witnessed the consequences of religious intolerance, the eighteenth century European Christians were anxious to recover through an ideology that was entrenched in religious principles and thereby securing its permanent effect of ensuring peace and progress in Europe both politically and philosophically - whilst preserving the sanctity of Christianity.

The principal advocate, Professor John Hick, devised the convoluted concept of religious pluralism by incorporating the Christian doctrine of salvation, allowing almost anyone to enter heaven. Ironically, to make his case, Hick used amongst other arguments Rūmī’s fable of the blind men describing an elephant. Thus suggesting that in our visualization of the ultimate reality, we are in the position of the blind men describing the elephant.

Our ultimate reality is limited by the structures of the various religions. In other words, be it through the trunk, or the leg or the ear, it was sufficient to conceptualize the elephant. While Rūmī used the parable to demonstrate our limitations in knowing the ultimate reality, Hick expounded religious pluralism by suggesting that the world’s numerous faiths had reconcilable differences in striving for the ultimate reality.