Another Remarkable Muslim: Farish Noor

I wanted to expand on my claim below ("Romance of Multiculturalism") that there are reasons to hope for a moderation of Islam, particularly, the exclusiveness of Islam. For unlike its other monothesitic siblings (Judaism and Christianity), Islam, at least in its contemporary manifestations, not only holds its exclusive rights to truth and right recognition and worship of God but a complete lack of regard of anyone outside Islam. There are only two possibilities, those who are in the House of Islam or those in the House of War. In other words, for good neighbors it does not make .

Enter Farish Noor:

For Farish Noor, the great challenge for contemporary Muslims is to overcome this exclusive parochial thinking and to extend their solidarity beyond the Muslim community to embrace all of humanity. For a long time, Noor found himself torn between his feelings of solidarity with his fellow Muslims and his belief in universal ideals.

A turning point came when he lived in Britain in the early 1990s. During the first Gulf War, he found a group of elderly women in a small provincial church praying during a night vigil 'for the people of Iraq.'

"Here was an example. Here were Christians in England praying for Iraqis who were being killed; people whose idea of Christian charity did not stop at the Christian community. For a while I felt a sense of shame because never had I been to a mosque where I saw Muslims praying for Christians, Hindus or Buddhists. We show charity, love and sympathy but only for fellow Muslims."

Noor went on to advocate what he describes as an 'Islam without borders'. Islam, he argues, has always claimed to be a universal religion which is not limited to one race or people. As such it was able to unite different peoples across ethnic and cultural boundaries. The real challenge for Islam presented by globalisation is now to rid itself of this last vestige of cultural partisanship and to reaffirm its universal message across the boundaries between Muslims and non-Muslims:

"I think for Islam to progress, we have to progress beyond the Muslim community. We talk of a universal God of love. If God's love is infinite, if it does not stop at your colour, race or religion, then why should ours? If we want to be real Muslims we have to go in that direction."

Here for more. (ht: Ayaan Hirsi Ali)