Anyone who attempts to heal the rift between the nation’s brothers usually makes a great effort to find a legitimate document supporting his position, and finds a rare few, such as, for example, the Qur’ān’s description of the Christians as including priests and monks who are free of arrogance, and that they are to be treated kindly since they are the people with the greatest affection for Muslims, as opposed to the Jews who are held to be the most inimical.
One has to make a distinction between religion as a collection of sacred texts and religious thought which aims to make use of these texts in social and intellectual applications. If one fails to make this distinction religiously defined sanctity risks overspilling onto broader arenas that embrace the religious thinker himself, his writings and his teachings.
The Arabs were unacquainted with systematic philosophical thought before the rise of Islam, and after it. It was the intermingling with other nations as a result of the geographical expansion and rise of the Arab state that led to a form of cultural blending. One of the results of this blending was that the Arabs came to be introduced to philosophical thought.
Muslims have been exalted through liberalism. Liberalism is the most suitable climate that allows Islam to embody its great principles of justice, equality, the maintenance of human dignity and human prosperity.
One has to make a distinction between religion as a collection of sacred texts and religious thought which aims to make use of these texts in social and intellectual applications. If one fails to make this distinction religiously defined sanctity risks overspilling onto broader arenas that embrace the religious thinker himself, his writings and his teachings.
Muslims have been exalted through liberalism. Liberalism is the most suitable climate that allows Islam to embody its great principles of justice, equality, the maintenance of human dignity and human prosperity.
