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that for a thousand years we have tried hard to ignore these questions. Other faiths also faced turmoil
in confronting these questions. How did they answer them? If the questions are the same in each faith,
then we as Muslims will benefit from an exploration of the answers those faiths produced and
continue to produce.
Will this threaten the integrity and cohesion of the Islamic community, as many of our clerics
feared and continue to fear? I think that the process of addressing these issues will open up the
possibility of greater integrity and cohesion. We deepen our faith, as well as our understanding of our
faith, by asking such questions. What you must do while asking these questions is to maintain your
faith that there are good and vital answers out there.
What do we as Muslims lose as we consider other people’s answers to the same questions? Do we
lose our faith? Does our faith become tainted? Do we become less Muslim because we found better
explanations elsewhere? Hardly. On the contrary, we discover a depth to our own faith when we open
our eyes to the universality of our condition. We discover that Islam has within it the capacity and
resources to accommodate all types of ideas and intellectual challenges. We take greater pride in the
universal nature of our faith.
What has changed in all these years is that I became clearer about the questions that we share as
human beings irrespective of religion. This is already some consolation. When I was your age, I was
still coming to terms with the idea that there could be questions about such important matters. At that
time, it was taboo even to suggest that you had questions, let alone voice them. In today’s world, the
questions come charging at us every day from all directions. The questions that you will have will
likely have to do with those who are not of your faith. How should we maintain our identity as
Muslims, and deal with others who are not of our faith? This question of identity is a question faced
by many other faiths. It is the question of exclusivity and its implications.
There are other questions relating to how we should deal with violence, and what place ancient
violence has in our modern understanding of Islam. Again, other faiths such as Christianity and
Judaism have dealt extensively with the experience of violence, as perpetrators and as victims, as
well as the theory of violence in religion and society. Let us look at their literature and see what our
clerics might be missing or may have overlooked. There are many different ways to perceive the
world today. We are no longer desert tribes, or villagers on the periphery of great events. We are all
deeply enmeshed in the modern world with its different stories, experiences, and demands. How can
we stretch ancient concepts and attitudes without destroying our emotional and mental
understandings? Should we turn back to our past, closing our eyes to what we can learn from others,
insisting that we are special and different from all others?
I suppose I started this letter with these thoughts because it has taken me years to uncover the truth
that the questions at the heart of our faith are also questions that have been asked in other faiths, and
by other people. I want you to open your mind to the full range of positions and arguments within
Islam. By this I mean the arguments and positions of the different, often warring, sects of Islam today,
as well as the schools of thought that have faded away over the centuries. Remember when I took you