Islamic teachings on harmony

Belief in monotheism and messenger-ship are part of those basic beliefs of Islam upon which is erected the entire edifice of this great religion. Both of these two are in fact sides of the same coin. Disorder emerged when difference was created between monotheism and messenger-ship and this difference resulted into downgrading of the status of the messenger-ship. The idea of polytheism and innovation was so much blown out of proportions that every second person was branded as polytheist. When the energies of champions of Islam were focused on these negative aspects, it caused two losses. One is that the scope of promotion of Islamic teachings got limited and secondly the muslims became enemies of one another with their daggers drawn as result of discrepancy and hatred. The second point which needs to be understood is that monotheism is not merely a semantic and theoretic subject; rather it represents a particular mindset and a state in addition to being a belief, which springs from inside of man. This is that spiritual taste, which makes the person indifferent to fears and greed of all the worlds and teaches him the principles and rules of subservience to God. Due to their strong faith in monotheism, the saints or friends of the Almighty Allah are settled on the high pedestal of nearness to him. No power of the world can attract them or allure them away from Almighty Allah. In the age of decline when monotheism became a semantic subject, it created hardness, arrogance and conceit in the dispositions of its followers whose reflections could be seen in the world. These trends and attitudes are portraying negative impression of Islam in the entire world instead of our religion’s message of peace, harmony, brotherhood, tolerance and peaceful coexistence. Noise about innovation and polytheism and reactions to it have become the symbol of internal divisiveness and lack of unity in the muslim world.
It is a different matter that the forces of falsehood and enemies of Islam have arrayed against it by rising above all divisions of caste, creed, religion, race and geography. In these compelling circumstances it was necessary that light would have been thrown on such topics of beliefs in a purely scholarly manner with moderate pattern of thinking to cope up with the challenge so that people could have come to understand the situation the situation more clearly. The followers of Islam are obliged to inculcate values like discretion and tolerance instead of extremism. Important advancement can be made in bridging and eliminating the gaps between different sects in Islam.