PRINCIPLES FOR INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE.pdf - CUEA

To the best of my knowledge, among all the other revealed texts, only
the Qur’an stresses religious liberty in such an accurate and
unambiguous way. The reason is that faith, to be true and reliable
faith, needs absolutely to be a free and voluntary act. In this
connection it is worthwhile to underline that the verse quoted was
revealed to reprove and condemn the attitude of some Jews and
Christians, newly converted to Islam in Medina, who were willing to
convert their children with them to their new faith. So it is clearly
stressed that faith is an individual concern and commitment and that
even parents must refrain from interfering with it. The very nature of
faith, as it is stressed in the basic text of Islam in clear and
indisputable words, is to be a voluntary act born out of conviction and
freedom.
In fact even God refrains from overpowering man to the point of
subduing him against his will. This too is clearly expressed in the
Qur’an. Faith then is a free gift, a gift of God. Man can accept or
refuse it. He has the very faculty to open his heart and his reason to
God’s gift. Guidance (hudan) has been given him. He is warmly
invited to listen to God’s call. God warns him in clear and
unambiguous terms. As it is underlined in the quoted verse stressing
man’s freedom: “Truth stands out clear from error.”— It is up to man
to make his choice. Man’s condition — and that is the price of man’s
dignity and sacredness — is not without something tragic in it. Man
can be misled. He is able to make the wrong choice and to stray from
the right path.
In a word, he has the capacity to resist God’s call, and this capacity is
the criterion of his true freedom. Even the Messenger, whose mission
is properly to convey God’s call and message, is helpless in such a
situation. He is clearly and firmly warned to respect man’s freedom
and God’s mystery. “If it had been thy Lord’s will, all who are on the
earth would have believed, all of them. Wilt though then compel
mankind, against their will, to believe?” (Q 10:99). A. Yusuf Ali, in his
translation of the Qur’an, comments on that verse in this way:
Men of faith must not be impatient or angry if they have to contend
against unfaith, and most important of all, they must guard against
the temptation of forcing faith, i.e. imposing it on others by physical
compulsion, or any other forms of compulsion, such as social
Created by DEAN-FASSFrederic Ntedika Mvumbi, OP
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