Interfaith Dialogue in Islam

time, saw a funeral procession passing through a street in Madinah. On seeing the funeral, he stood up in deference. One of his Companions said, ‘O Prophet! That was the funeral of a Jew, not a Muslim.’ The Prophet replied: ‘Was he not a human being?’ (Sahih al-Bukhari, hadith no. 1312, 1313) The Prophet could discover a commonality between himself and a Jew, because both were human beings and creations of God. Present-day Muslims often callously use the term kafir. They must bear in mind the following hadith of the Prophet of Islam where he condemned mindless usage of this term and said: If one accuses another of being a kafir and the accused is not one, then the word will return to the accuser. (Sahih al-Bukhari, hadith no. 6045) Muslims must therefore absolutely refrain from alleging anyone as being a kafir or a denier. Does Islam have a concept similar to karma? N o, Islam does not believe in the concept of karma. The concept of karma rests on the notion of the perpetual re-birth of a person until the soul is cleansed, after which it finally joins the divine. According to this concept, it is the outcome of the karma of a person that determines his next form in his re-birth and this cycle continues. According to Islam, a person’s life is eternal, a fraction of which he spends on the planet earth. The time he spends on earth is a test. How he has performed in this test will be evaluated after his death on the Judgment Day. The Quran says: On that Day people will come forward in separate groups to be shown their deeds: whoever has done the smallest particle of good will see it; while whoever has done the smallest particle of evil will see it. (Quran 99:6-8) Can a caliph put an end to the turmoil in the Muslim world today? Problems are a part of nature and no one is capable of eliminating them, not even a caliph. Even the period described as the Golden Era of Islam (of the Prophet, the Companions of the Prophet and the Followers of the Companions), was not devoid of problems.