02/26/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-09729

TEACHING TOLERANCE, NOT HATRED

Islam has a rich history of respect for learning and tolerance. But today, these values are too often not being taught to young people. One result, as the attacks of September 11^th made clear, is the terrorism that threatens people around the world.

In Pakistan, there are schools that have been promoting hatred and violence. This is especially true of Pakistan’s madrassas. These religious schools are often funded with private money from Saudi Arabia and other countries. In many of them, boys are taught an extremist version of the Muslim religion and little else.

Madrassas in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other places have become notorious as a breeding ground for terrorists. In fact, many members of Afghanistan’s ousted Taleban regime, as well as some of the al-Qaida terrorists, went to such schools. That is why President Pervez Musharraf has pledged to make sure that Pakistan’s madrassas devote themselves to spreading knowledge and understanding, not intolerance.

Pakistan is not the only Muslim country where responsible people are speaking out on the need to teach tolerance in schools. Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari [ahb-dul-hah-MEED ahl-ahn-SAH-ree] is dean of sharia and law at Qatar University. He says that Muslim schools need to remove "all seeds of hatred, repulsion, and fanaticism towards. . .those whose religion is different from ours, or towards those belonging to a different school of [Islamic] thought."

Mr. Al-Ansari points out that some "preachers in the mosques incite hatred towards those of a different religion. It is they," he says, "who portrayed the war in Afghanistan as a crusader war between Islam and Christianity. This is a lie that many youth fell for, and fell victim to."

There are also signs that a debate on religious tolerance may even be beginning in Saudi Arabia. Sahr Muhammad Hatem [sah-HAHR mo-HAHM-med HAH-tem] of Riyadh said in a letter to the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat [OW-saht], "They have taught us that anyone who is not a Muslim is our enemy, and that the West means enfeeblement, licentiousness, lack of values."

But as Saudi Sahr Muhammad Hatem points out, this distorted view of the Muslim religion has "set us at odds with the world." "How long," she asks, "will this damage to the lives of Muslims everywhere. . .continue? The solution," she says, "is the Islam that was taught us by the Prophet. . .an Islam of tolerance."