By the way...

By the way, is it not proper that the civilized humankind of today, instead of violent and aggressive attitudes toward faiths and religions, observe coexistence, peace and sincerity, set aside dogmatism and absolutism, treat with respect all religions and creeds, and regard the beliefs and views of others as rightful just like our beliefs? War and conflict is the work of ignorant and uncivilized human beings. The present-day man is supposed to be civilized and intelligent!

Apart from political and selfish motives, there are at least two rational motives for the rise and acceptance of pluralism. One is the emotional reason, arguing that it is inconceivable for all human beings to go to hell, while the second one is meant to prevent war and bloodshed. Now, the question is: Is this the solution to these problems? If we want to prevent religious wars and sectarian conflicts, is the only way to say that all religions are correct and truthful?

And if we want to avert innumerable people who have no fault and merely because of some social problems and their views that they have failed to identify the right path which in our view is Islam from going to hell, is the only way to say that the idolatry of the Hindus, the doctrine of Trinity of the Christians and the monotheism [ tawhid ] of Muslims are all correct and rightful? Is there no other way?

Assessing the Psychological Motive in Presenting Pluralism In reply, we have to say that regarding the going to hell of all people who have not accepted the Shi‘ah ‘Ithna ‘Ashari Islam, it must be stated that this matter has no validity and Islam does not say so. It is true that we say that the correct school of thought is only one, but people whom we deemed as people of hell and chastisement are the obstinate ones [ ahl al-‘inad ].

That is, although the truth is clear for them, they do not accept it on account of enmity and other motives. If a person failed to identify the truth for whatever reason, the ruling about him is different from that of a person who identifies the truth but does not accept it.

The root of this issue is traceable to the discussion on the mentally downtrodden [ mustadh‘af fikr i], weak (or excusable) ignorant [ jahil qasir ] and culpable (or inexcusable) ignorant [ jahil muqassir ], which is a discussion on jurisprudence [ fiqh ] and scholastic theology [ ‘ilm al-kalam ].