One Soul, a statement from Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue

23 Mar One Soul, a statement from Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue

God, High and Exalted says:
“O mankind, fear your Lord, who created you from one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women. And fear God, through whom you ask one another, and the wombs. Indeed Go is ever, over you, an Observer.” (An-Nisa 4: 1)

Yes, it is one soul. It manifests itself to us now, at this hardest time of trial, tribulation and pandemic that today stormed our world. It is to remind us of the call of the One Who created us all – whether we are men or women, Arabs or non-Arabs; white, brown or black.

It reminds us of Allah’s Will upon us that our fate in this world shall be one – the fate of tribulation and trial. That He shall test us in this world with His blessings that He subjects to our service. Our sun is one. Our sky is one. Our water is one and our air is one. He also tests us with incidences we have no hand in nor ability to prevent such as environmental calamities, famines, pandemics, and diseases.

He equally puts us to test through what we, as humans, bring on ourselves, due to our ignorance, greed, arrogance and haughtiness such as wars, poverty, ignorance, and the widening gap between the rich and the poor, absence of social justice, deterioration of fundamental human rights and freedoms, widespread of extremism, hate, atheism and moral decadence.

It is high time we all realized that religions are required now, more than ever before, to cooperate among themselves and take practical and bold steps to save human societies. They need to have a united vision that can spur us on doing righteous deeds that God enjoins on us in Torah, the Bible, and the Qur’an. A real believer is the one who can face difficult tasks. There is no superiority among us as humans except on account of faith and righteous deeds. These two are the prime movers for our personalities and the best nutrient of our human experience on this planet. They are also an indication of human perfection that charts for us the right course towards good and peace – the basic factors through which this universe can be constructively inhabited. Here, there is no place for abandoning the responsibility. Real faith must be a source of illumination and spiritual discernment.

This is, hopefully, the humanity’s lifebuoy amid the torrenting waves of modern human catastrophes, and many they are!