Islam and Peace
Religious Harmony
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them, let us consider, how to bring about harmony
between them.
One solution commonly advocated is to spread the
conviction that all religions are essentially one: that
they are simply diverse paths leading to a common
destination. Islam, however, does not accept this
view and, in any case, experience has shown that
repeated attempts to bring about harmony on this
basis have been a failure. The Emperor Akbar
attempted to achieve harmony by state enforcement
of his newly formed religion, ‘Din-e-Ilahi’; Dr.
Bhagwan Das spent the best part of his life
producing a one-thousand page book titled
Essential Unity of All Religions; Mahatma Gandhi
(1869-1948) attempted to spread this ideal at the
national level by a countrywide movement whose
slogan was ‘Ram Rahim ek hai’, meaning Ram and
Rahim were one and the same. But events have
shown us that all failed in their attempts to achieve
the goal of religious harmony.
Islam’s approach to the entire problem is much
more realistic in that it accepts ideological
differences. Once having accepted these differences,
