SPIRIT OF ISLAM APRIL 2O18

44 Spirit of Islam Issue 64 April 2018 ASK MAULANA Your Questions Answered Maulana Wahiduddin Khan in a Panel Discussion on Unity in Diversity, New Delhi Do you agree with the understanding that Ultimate Reality, whatever it is called, has to be One and that it is ineffable, that it is too great to be described in words? According to Islam, Ultimate Reality is only another name for God. The Islamic concept of God is based on tawhid , or the oneness of God. God is one, not only in number but in every other aspect. God alone is the Creator and Sustainer of everything. Islam stresses duality—that there is a Creator, or God, on the one hand, and creatures, on the other. According to Islam, Reality is not only a matter of belief but also a matter of conviction. And when it is a matter of conviction, it is necessary to express that conviction in words, because human beings cannot recognize anything or establish conviction without expressing it in words. So, according to Islam, Reality or God can be expressed in words. I don’t wish to question the intent of proselytization that seeks to bring others into one’s religious fold. But is it possible for followers of a tradition that believes in proselytization to truly respect religious diversity? Are they not bound to treat religious diversity as a provisional state of affairs and cherish the hope that this state of affairs will eventually be overcome when the gap between the self and the other will be bridged via religious conversion? In the light of my study, conversion is alien to Islam. The Islamic concept is based on Ma'rifat , which means self-realization. According to Islam, the reality of God is a matter of self-realization. When people use the word ‘conversion’, it means there are two persons—one, the person who converts from one religion to another, and the other, the person who engages in trying to make others convert from one religion to another. This kind of concept is not present in Islam. Islam teaches that everyone must try to discover Reality on their own, because without this kind of discovery, without self-realization, there is no conviction. Conviction is very important in Islam. Now, about the question of religious diversity, I would say that dealing with religious diversity is not a matter of religious belief. Rather, it is