Islam-Supremacism: Muslims Must Shed Their Toffee-Nosed Attitude Towards Other Religions
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
29 October
2022
" Show me a Muslim who considers all other
religions as genuinely equal and treats followers of other faiths the way he
treats his Muslim brethren, I'm ready to re-examine and even re-embrace Islam
that I left many moons ago."
-My
Professor of Mysticism and Persian, Dr Zaifa Ashraf, who turned her back on
Islam at the age of 17 and never accepted any other man-made religion/s
" Muslims often believe that their ISLAM
is the truest faith. Other faiths could only be true in comparison but will
remain inferior to Islam."
Jacques
Waardenburg, Muslim Perceptions of Other Religions: A Historical Survey (OUP,
1999)
I fully agree
with a reader, Aditya, that the term non-Muslim is worse than the word Kafir (infidel).
It smacks of outright condescension. One seemingly level-headed reader opines
that we ( Momins) should call non-believers, non-Muslims. What a toffee-nosed
attitude! In other words, he does suggest that who doesn't believe in Islam is
a non-believer, as if one's belief begins and ends with Islam and it's the
be-all and end-all for humanity.
If an
individual has no faith in Islam, can't he or she have faith/belief in some
other religion? Will that make him/her a non-believer? This obstinate approach
to one's religion is venomous for mankind. That's why, Muslims across the world
are uniformly disliked by the followers of other faiths. Their (Muslims)
pontification and deep-down misunderstanding that it's the ONLY true faith and
other religions are fake and false is Islam's undoing.
Salman
Rushdie aptly said in an interview that, to Muslims, their Islam is the Moon
and others' faiths are mere Moonshine.
So very
true! A Muslim might appear to be liberal and advanced in thinking, but
somewhere he or she will entertain the psychic and pathological misconception
of Islamic supremacy.
This attitude needs a revamp if Islam is to
live in a peaceful coexistence with other faiths and their followers. But the
million-dollar question is, does Islam believe in the lofty idea and ideals of
coexistence? It doesn't.
----
A
regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative
religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to
world's premier publications in several languages including Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-sectarianism/supremacism-muslims-attitude-religions/d/128294
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