Q300 :In my village, back home, I own a plot of land
in the middle of which there is a Hindu temple. Three years ago, when I
went home on vacation, a number of Hindu notables visited me to solicit
my approval for a road and other services to pass through my land to
the temple. Since then, I have been troubled by their request. I have
uneasy feelings about helping in the worship practices of an idolatrous
religion. I wrote to the management netmittee of our local mosque
suggesting that they take over the land as an endowment, but they seem
reluctant to accept. If I refuse the request, I fear that this may lead
to hardened attitudes and eventually to religious strife. Perhaps I
should add that the majority of the people in our village are Muslim,
but there are neighboring Hindu majority villages and the Hindu
netmunity receive much support from the political party in power in
this area.
A300 : Your problem is certainly a tricky one. You
own the land surrounding the temple, but you do not own the temple
itself. Therefore, you do not have any control over how the building is
used, but you have the legal power to stop the people from neting to
the temple. If you exercise that power, you will create ill feelings
and there will be efforts by the local Hindu population to gain access
to the temple by force. This issue may lead to much strife. In a
country like yours, which has witnessed frequent sectarian riots, the
situation could lead to large-scale trouble and may cause loss of life.
You will certainly have exercised your legal right, but what does Islam
gain out of that? There is certainly no tangible gain and there may be
much loss, which may not be possible to measure in financial or
material terms. What we have to understand is that Islam preaches
tolerance. Over the centuries, Muslims all over the world have shown a
degree of religious tolerance which can hardly be equaled by any other
religion. When the Islamic state was at the height of its power,
religious netmunities were able to practice their religions without
fear of any persecution or disturbance. They could claim their rights
even against the opposition of the Muslim ruler. If a dispute is likely
to generate strife and troubles, then Islam would do everything
possible to prevent it, even if that leads to giving the other party
some privileges to which they are not entitled. Islam is not a faith
which seeks the suppression of other religions, nor does it stamp out
religious freedom. Indeed, it preaches freedom of belief and tries to
protect that freedom wherever possible. Before I suggest to you a
course of action, I would like to relate an incident which took place
13 centuries ago, in the year 86 or 87 of the Islamic calendar i.e.
over 1300 years ago. When the city of Damascus in Syria surrendered to
the Muslim army in the year 14 of the Islamic calendar, it so happened
that half of the city surrendered after a fight in which the Muslim
army was able to overnete its besieged defenders, while the other half
surrendered voluntarily. In the center of the city, there was a very
large temple built 4000 years earlier. It had benete a church when
Syria became Christian about 300 years before the Muslim army took over
the city. A peace treaty was drawn out which made a list of the
churches to remain in the hands of the Christian population. As to that
big church, it was agreed that one half of it would be a mosque and the
other half would remain as a church. This was felt to be fair to both
parties, since the Muslims could claim half of it as a result of
occupying half of the city by force. Several churches were not included
in the terms of the peace treaty. These were handed over to the
Muslims. Damascus was soon to benete the capital of the Muslim state.
More and more of its population was keen to adopt Islam. In the year
86, Al-Waleed ibn Abdulmalik became the Caliph and he wanted to attend
to a need which became very pressing. The mosque at the center of the
city was no longer adequate to acnetmodate people in Friday prayers. He
wished to get the other half and integrate the two portions into a
magnificent mosque. He called in the Christian leaders and requested
them to give up that church in return for a large number of properties,
including four major churches which were in Muslim hands. His
suggestion was met with determined refusal. The Caliph was
disappointed, but he could not force the Christians to give up their
church. He later requested them to bring the treaty and read the
relevant provisions. As they read out the terms of the treaty to him,
he discovered that Saint Thomas’s church, which was an even larger
church, was not included in the treaty. As such, it was the property of
the state, which was now an Islamic one. Al-Waleed told them that since
this was the case, he was satisfied to build the mosque in its place.
The Christian leaders said: “If the Caliph would leave Saint Thomas’s
church to us and the other four, we are willing to give up the other
half of the church he wishes to have.” Thus the matter was settled and
Al-Waleed integrated that half of the church into a new mosque which
remains until today in the center of Damascus known as the Omayyad
Mosque. As you see, the Islamic state in its early period was willing
to negotiate an agreement which assigned to non-Muslims a number of
buildings to be used as places of worship. No scholar had objected to
that at any time. Therefore, if you respond to the request of the Hindu
netmunity in your area, knowing that such a favorable response would
eliminate causes of trouble and would promote the interests of the
Muslim netmunity, you do no wrong.
Our Dialogue ( Source : Arab News – Jeddah )