The word religion is usually replaced by word Faith or Beliefs, but religion is different from these.

Religion
is a combination of cultures, beliefs, faiths and world’s view regarding spirituality and moral values. Most
of the religions have symbols, traditions, history that explains life as well as origin of life and its purpose.
Religion consists of morality, ethics, and religious laws in order to spend an ideal life.

Religion became the most controversial issue after secularist movements emerged in Europe in 18 th
century. There are all kinds of views regarding religion. Some people consider it totally irrelevant and
have believes in science others think it as obstacle in human progress. While, on the other hand, some
people strictly have faith in religion and consider it “sin” to going against the religious rules and doctrines.

The rational proof of the demand for high always refuse to admit that the data beyond the visible
verification. They feel that there are only doctrines of religion, and nowhere else. They
completely rely on human reason is a reason for anything over and beyond what is acceptable.
On the other hand, those who believe in religion to maintain because they are too fragile to
sustain and have clear limitations. What God is incomprehensible by reason. Rely on intuition,
revelation and faith, and in extreme cases, faith is blind faith.

Therefore, the reason for religion to be contradictory and inconsistent. Both tend to reject each
other. These speeches rational and religious truth irretrievably lost. Rationalists see religion as
the main culprit and feel the most human problems can be solved only after the removal of
religion. Believers, however, tend to believe that religion is lost, the world is a bad place to live
will invite disaster. Irony of this debate is rational, and put faith reason to believe the reason to
refute rationalist arguments.

Thus it will be seen that a human person can neither do without faith nor without
reason. Also, one has to precisely define what is meant by ‘religion’ ‘religious faith’
and what would be implications of leaving reason or human intellect free of all other
constraints. Also the important question is: can faith be free of all rational inquiries
and reason be free of faith? This is very vital question and has to be answered with all
sense of responsibility.

In my opinion reason needs faith in values and faith needs to be controlled by critical
inquiry. Reason without faith and faith without reason can turn into major problem for
human beings.  We should also understand that religion and faith are inseparable but
religion is much more than faith.  It is true religion revolves around axis of faith but
religion in itself includes elements of social customs, traditions and institutions. Thus
one has to distinguish between faith and religion too.

One can thus say that every faith finds expression in concrete historical and social
conditions and one cannot appreciate religious institutions and beliefs without
appreciating social and historical conditions. Even divinity can be expressed only
through given social conditions and no divine thought can do without socially
conditioned institutions. It is also important to note that any divine revelation is both
response to social and historical conditions as well as provision for transcendent
norms.
However, often the initial divine response to given socio-historical situation acquires
permanency and eternal sanctity and its transcendent dimension is completely lost.
First of all let us understand that religion has four important aspects: 1) institutional
system; 2) thought system; 3) ritual system and 4) value-system. Institutional system
and thought system are historically conditioned and represent divine response to the
given historical situation.

Let us understand that the institutional and thought systems are important but one
must take their historicity into account. To consider any religion lock, stock and barrel
permanent is to misunderstand the divine response itself. Thought and institution
systems are as much human as divine and must admit of change with changing
conditions. Value system, being transcendent, is only of permanent nature and value
system is common to all religions.

Ritual system, on the other hand, is means to attain the values and is thus means rather
than the goal. However, given human nature, rituals often become goal and are
performed for its own sake. Thus with the passage of time they loose all meaning and
get delinked with values they are supposed to represent. It is also important to note
that though values are common to all religions, rituals are not.

Rituals are also cultural expression of the given values.  Each religion is borne in a
given culture with its own customs and traditions. Every culture is unique so is the
ritual system in every religion. Thus ritual system, though unique as it develops in
different cultures, is not necessarily contradictory in its goal. Different ritual systems
developed in different religions through the medium of given cultures, tend to
emphasise the same goal.

However, followers of different religions develop prejudice towards ritual system of

other religions and even tend to denounce it. This is because they fail to appreciate
role of culture in shaping the ritual system. We will also throw light on the role of
priesthood in every religion in causing conflict. Suffice here to say that it plays
important role in promoting conflict with other religious communities.

The Qur’an, has expressed the futility of such conflict in number of ways. Thus in
2:148 it emphasizes varied nature of way and direction in which one turns to worship
Him. One should not fight about these different ways but to worship Him sincerely.
Also, in 6:109 it requires Muslims not to abuse others’ gods as they can abuse Allah
without knowledge.  And in 22:40 the Qur’an states that be it the Christian place of
worship or that of Jews or others, they are all sacred and Allah’s name is remembered
in these places of worship belonging to different religious communities and must be
protected. 
The Sufis understood this much better than the ‘Ulama who tended to be indifferent or
in worst cases even hostile to other religions’ ritual systems. Here it would be
important to throw light on the role of priesthood in different religions. In fact much
of the conflict between religions has been due to the role of priesthood. It is part of
institutional system in every religion. Religion per se does not need priesthood. Islam
in particular is supposed to be totally free of this institution of priesthood as far as the
Qur’anic teachings go. Every believer is not only responsible for all religious rituals
but is also directly answerable to Allah for his/her deeds. No intervener or intercessor
is needed. However, as common believers do not fulfil their responsibility those who
acquire expertise develops and acquire monopoly over understanding of religious
thought and doctrines.

It is also to be noted that since priesthood acquires vested interest in controlling

thought system, ritual system and institutional system in religion, it looses its true
spirit in the form of value system. Value system becomes least important to them. The
centrality of value system has to be marginalized to serve their own interests. The
priesthood can maintain its control over its followers only by asserting superiority of
its religion over the other. This is the only way it can keep its flock of followers
together.

However, a close examination of fundamental scriptures of different religions would

clearly reveal that they do not assert superiority over other religious scriptures. They
assert universality rather than specificity. Specificity often emerges in religious
thought system developed later in the given historical and cultural situation. The
Qur’an asserts the concept of wahdat-i-Deen (unity of religions). Two major Islamic
thinkers from Indian sub-continent Shah Waliullah Dehlavi (of 18 th century) and
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad of twentieth century both have thrown detailed light on
this concept in their magnum opuses Hujjat Allahi al-Balighah and Tarjuman al-
Qur’an.

Those who maintain centrality of the value system over historically and culturally
conditioned thought and ritual system will never develop attitude of hostility towards
other religions. The irony of the situation is that those associated with the religious
communities be they priests or be they community leaders acquire vested interest in
maintaining control over the community and then they marginalize its value system or
spirituality and promote status quo, opposing any change or co-operational efforts
with other communities.

It would be quite interesting to note yet two other aspects of religions i.e. religion as a
moral guide and religion as an identity. Te basic role of every religion is to provide
guidance for morally and spiritually healthy life on earth so as to continuously enrich
our existence and make it more meaningful. However, every religious community,
i.e. community of believers, need an identity, a community to belong to and this
identity plays an important role in psychological sense.

While religion as a moral guide brings closer cooperation between different religious
communities, religion as an identity tends to create conflict. Identity is not only a
psychological need but also draws walls of separation and results in clashes of
worldly interests between members of different religious communities. Prof.
Huntington of clash of civilization fame misconceives this clash of interests as clash
of civilizations.

It will help lessen tensions between different communities (religious, national or

civilizational), if we can understand this difference between the two roles i.e. that of
moral guide and that of identity. If we use religion as moral guide alone it will cause
no problems but if it is linked to our identity it becomes easy tool for politicians and
other vested interests to exploit. However, it is very difficult to de-link religion with
identity as a community of believers sharing common religion does get linked up with
common identity and this common identity has its own dynamics. 

The feeling of ‘we’ and ‘they’ is the result of this feeling of identity. Our common
humanity is thus becomes secondary to our separate religious identities. In fact it is
not possible to completely do away with commonly shared identity but it should not
be over-emphasized either at the cost of our common human identity. More emphasis
should be laid on moral aspects so as to de-emphasise to an extent, separate religious
identity.

The value system in any religion is its soul whereas institutions, rituals etc. represent
its body. As every living body has soul, every living religion has value system, which
gives it life. The believers are unfortunately more focused on the body than on the
soul. While we create grand institutions, we neglect the most essential values. The
most fundamental values common to all religions are as follows: 1) Love; 2) non-
violence; 3) compassion; 4) equality; 5) justice; 6) human dignity and 7) truth.

These seven values are common to all religions some value being emphasized more
than the other in another religion. Love for example is more emphasized in
Christianity (so also by Sufi Islam which calls it ishq) and non-violence in Indic
religions like Hinduism and Jainism. Compassion is more emphasized in Buddhism
and equality and justice in Islam.  Truth, of course is common to all religions. And all
these values are complementary to each other. 

Seen in this light all religions, looked from this perspective, compliment each other
rather than conflict with each other. Thus one must re-emphasise the value system to
reduce inter-religious conflict. The founders of these religions, it is important to note,
began by emphasizing these core values. The founders did not engage themselves in
building grand institutions. They did not even engage in developing the thought
system. They struggled hard to improve the moral health of their followers.

The followers of these religions, however, soon built grand laces of worship and other
institutions. And soon huge establishments came into existence to be controlled by
few leaders who then control the community also. The Buddha never constructed
temples. He never stayed at one place and went around preaching his doctrines, which
were quite rational.  Jesus lived in the company of the poor and served them and laid
down his life for the noble cause.

The Prophet of Islam led very simple life and constantly struggled for the cause of the
poor, the needy, the orphans and the widows and was strongly committed to the cause
of human equality, dignity and justice. He built a very simple mosque where he and
his followers not only prayed but he also used it as a community place where he met
delegations and dispensed justice. He had to go hungry for days at times. 

Nanak and Kabir also led exemplary life of utter simplicity and devoted themselves to
the cause of truth. However the followers of all these great founders of religions
developed huge institutions, built empires and began to control huge assets. The very
spirit of core values was soon lost and conflict between different religious
communities developed.  The inter-religious conflict is not religious conflict indeed
but conflict between the secular interests of its followers or between their leaders. If
we understand this it will greatly help us understand the nature of inter-religious
conflict.

For all such theological differences the key phrase in the Qur’an is fastabiqu al-
khayrat i.e. excel each with the other in good deeds, leaving all other differences to
Allah.  Thus the Qur’anic doctrine is that human differences will be finally settled by
Allah. So let not human beings fight over these but excel each other in good deeds.
However, ignoring this important doctrine we engage ourselves in fighting with each
other on petty differences both within the community and between the communities.

Also, to de-emphasise values the leaders of various religious communities over-

emphasise ritual system which helps them preserve their control as well as the social
status quo.  It is important to note that founders of various religions from Buddha to
Christ to Muhammad to Nanak, never approved of status quo. In fact all of them were
seriously disturbed, even anguished, by the prevailing conditions, deeply reflected
over the malaise and set about to change them.

They deeply loved humanity and their main concern was to restore social and moral
health often by striking at the vested interests of all kinds, ‘religious’, political as well
as economic. The Buddha was disturbed by ritualistic sacrifices of his time while
neglecting suffering humanity. He reflected over this social and moral sickness and
concluded that compassion for suffering humanity was the only remedy.  Buddha’s
eightfold truth talks about right thought, right action so as to restore moral health of
the society and to reduce human suffering. But again rituals took over soon and all
values were sidelined. Buddhism today no more engages with human suffering but
gives priority to building monasteries and grand temples and huge establishments.

The Prophet of Islam himself an orphan knew what suffering is and he saw
accumulation of wealth in Mecca by inter-tribal corporation, on one hand, and, intense
sufferings by slaves, the poor, the needy and the widows, on the other. They were all
neglected while the few were chasing wealth and luxuries. He was seriously disturbed
by this social malaise and confided himself to the cave of Hira and reflected deeply
over moral and spiritual malaise and began to receive divine revelation to set this
right.

The Qur’an thus emphasized truth of all religions on one hand, and, equality, human
dignity and social justice, on the other. It exhorted its followers to take care of the
weaker sections of society (mustad’ifin) and denounced the powerful and exploiters
(mustakbirin). According to the Qur’an Allah is on the side of weaker sections and
will severely punish the powerful and the arrogant (see 28:5 and 9:34). The Prophet
was the exemplar par excellence of this and was so compassionate towards suffering
humanity that he was addressed in the Qur’an as the Mercy of the worlds (Rahmatan
li al-‘Aalamin).

However, his followers soon forgot these moral values of equality, human dignity,
compassion for the suffering humanity and justice. Soon civil war broke out among
Muslims within a couple of decades of the death of the prophet and thousands were
killed, all believers and followers of Islam.  Religion looses its spirit when it becomes
huge establishment.  Unfortunately many religious leaders began to justify violence in
the form of jihad for their own interests. The true meaning of jihad – to make utmost
efforts for spreading good and fighting evil – was lost. The Prophet had said that the
best form of jihad was to tell truth on the face of a tyrant. This requires tremendous
courage and spirit of sacrifice to go for such jihad.      

From above discussion it would be seen that a truly religious person should be
strongly committed to the core values, which are almost common in all religions. A
truly religious person would never emphasise differences (which are there due to
culture, social traditions and historical situation) but commonality between religions.
A truly religious person would never accept status quo but would be committed to
change it for better.
A truly religious person should be sincerely committed to human freedom, freedom of
conscience. Only a free person can act morally without any pressure from any quarter.
One who is not free has no choice and one who has no choice cannot be morally
responsible. Thus a religious person should be passionately committed to human
freedom and human dignity.  No one should be enslaved if moral health of the society
is to be upheld. Subjugation to authority robs a person of freedom of choice.

A religious person should incessantly strive for truth. A quest for truth is an act of true
worship. Quest for truth is also the quest for inner peace and spiritual richness.  The
quest for truth leads to inner certitude and inner certitude leads to freedom from all
forms of ignorance and the Qur’anic term Iman means inner conviction and inner
certitude. Thus true believer (Mu‘min) is one who has deep conviction in revelation
from high on which exhorts them to excel in morality and human perfection.  

It is for this that the Sufis emphasized the doctrine of what they called insan-e-kamil
(perfect human being) who is totally free, who is not slave of is own lust, who does
not worship idols of his desires and bows down only to Allah who represents perfect
knowledge and is Just.

A truly religious person has no trace of arrogance and is model of humility. Arrogance
is borne of ignorance and unjust power. Also, a truly religious person commits
himself to leave the world better than he found it after his birth. Only one who is
desirous of power and pelf would leave it worse than when he was borne. A religious
person freely and fearlessly chooses what is good as against what is evil, raises his
voice against all forms of injustices in the world and works passionately for liberation
of entire humanity irrespective of caste, color and creed.

It is such religious person that can bring peace to the world.