Role of Muslim Communities and Islamic Institutions
in Highlighting the Image of Islam
Ways of Taking Advantage from the Cultural Assets of Muslim Minorities and Communities
The cultural and civilizational treasure of Muslim minorities everywhere provides them with means of intercommunication, at many levels, with non-Muslim societies of which they are members. At the humanitarian level, Muslims rely on civilizational tolerance as a general basis for their relations with non-Muslims. This tolerance finds its source in the belief in the unity of the human origin and in the ideals and values of good, justice, virtue, decency, truth, honesty, integrity, prowess, magnanimity and bravery embraced by people throughout history. And at the level of mutual exchange of interests and benefits and coexistence in its broadest and deepest sense, Muslims who adhere to the precepts enshrined in their veritable religion perfectly understand that work is a kind of worship and that it is God’s ordinance to disperse and go in quest. They also know exactly that to serve people is one of the noble ends of the Islamic law (Sharia) and that warding off evil comes before bringing profits. They thoroughly believe working together for good deeds, piety, good and general interests to be a religious duty. For Muslims, acquiring strength, delving into knowledge to achieve development, progress and advancement in science are stages for sound people everywhere and in anytime towards honest life.
At the general cultural level, and from a civilizational viewpoint, Muslims have always been intent on mutual rapprochement and dialogue with people following other religions and embracing other cultures and civilizations. They put this mutual rapprochement and dialogue on the same bar as preaching the way of Allah who said that preaching should be by wisdom, good advice and kindness. This emanates from their belief in the mission they are assuming and the duty enjoined upon them to preach it to all people and also from their belief that they are harbingers of a divine guidance, a constructive civilization and a telic culture.
The values and principles to which Muslims adhere and which manifest themselves in their behaviour with the people they live together with stand out like a beacon lighting their way wherever they are in non-Muslim countries whether as an itinerant community, a resident or a citizen class minority. It is because these values constitute the pillar upon which right human relations and high principles of civilizational coexistence are built up and founded.
Nevertheless, the Islamic values are with no positive effect in the social environment of which Muslims form a coherent and a unified structure unless they are geared to objective conditions. These are the belief in, the awareness of, the assimilation and the observance of these values. This entails that a continuous effort be made, at all levels, in terms of raising awareness, education and guidance, in order to achieve complete protection and to preserve the cultural and civilizational identity.
Of course, Muslim minorities residing in several countries are in urgent need of our commitment to ensure complete educational, cultural, ethical and intellectual protection. The aim is to keep these minorities aloof from the compelling influences which threaten the very moral existence and undermine people’s cultural and ethical immunity so that they become prone to perdition, corruption and disarray.
Therefore, the influence of Muslim minorities on the societies of which they are members depends upon the wholeness of their intellectual and cultural entity and their ethical immunity. Because the more Muslim minorities, residing in non-Muslim countries, are religiously and ethically holding together and aware of their civilizational mission, the more the civilizational influence of their presence is felt in their environment and surround
But, as soon as this entity gets weak and disintegrated, on account of, in addition to other factors, the absence of true religious awareness and lack of well-knit solidarity and effective and organized work respecting and availing of common laws, Muslims become cut off the course of life and start to withdraw from the track of civilizational race. As a consequence of their lapsing in oblivion and downfall, Muslim minorities turn into a heavy burden on the large Muslim community, which harms Islam in one way or the other.
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