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            Sufi way to inculcate tolerance

By Anwar Mansuri 

Dr Tariq Rehman, professor at Quaid-i-Azam University, speaks at the launching of Roots of Religious Tolerance in Pakistan and India here on Thursday. The author, Dr Kamran Ahmad, is also seen.—Dawn

ISLAMABAD: Fanaticism is being countered directly in Pakistan but it can be countered indirectly also by reconnecting people to the subcontinent’s spiritual past steeped in tolerance, an advocate of religious tolerance said here on Thursday.
 
Dr Kamran Ahmad made the suggestion at the launch of his book Roots of Religious Tolerance in Pakistan and India which traces the idea through history, culture and traditions. Tolerance is in the psyche of ordinary people, reared in whatever religion.

‘It is about spiritualism not religion. It is about Allah,’ he said about the book which he conceived in 1989 and researched through the 90s.

It is based on his experiences of learning from Muslim, Christian, Buddhist and Hindu clerics and living Sufism.
 
Dr Kamran, who did his PhD in Philosophy and Religion and a Masters in Clinical Psychology from California, and is involved in various mystical traditions, said that throughout the ages, religious intolerance in the subcontinent has been confined to the ruling classes while people at large had no qualms about religious differences.

That was best reflected in the folklore and legends produced in centuries past.

‘When Heer sent Ranjha a message to visit her, Ranjha, a Muslim, went to seek the  blessings of saint Gorakh Nath at Tilla Jogian and became his disciple before proceedings to his beloved. 
 
Nobody made an issue of it, or declared him murted.  That speaks for religious harmony,’ the author said. 
Dr Kamran holds that the identity of a person does not have to be fixed. ‘It can be multiple, even conflicting,’ he said.

Prof Dr Tariq Rehman of Quaid-i-Azam University had observed introducing the book that the psyche of the Muslims of South Asia was conditioned ‘not by Mullah morality’ but Sufi saints.
 
‘People are hardwired to the existence of God and that’s not orthodox,’ he said, supporting an all inclusive humanity.

DAWN: Friday, 29 May, 2009