RELIGIOUS OTHER IN THE TEACHING AND THE TRADITION OF ISLAM

Abstract

UDK  2-67
          28:21/29

In the age of the crises of moral values religions could contribute in a construction of healthy worldview of contemporary man and in affirmation of the basic human rights. Even though all the revealed religions are in their constitutive dimension against the violence, often they have been mobilised in some plans of accomplishing certain goals that are contrary to their message. Imperative for the religious heads in Bosnia and Herzegovina is to revive “neighbouring ethos”, existential form that was formed on the bases of the Holy Scriptures. Great obstacle on the plane of rebuilding the confidence amongst the members of different national communities within Bosnia and Herzegovina are those individuals and some political structures who are working on establishment of “esencialistic multiculturalism” or a “individually homogenous” pluralism of self-sufficient mono-cultures, all of which are essentially to the centuries old tradition of coexistence of different religious, cultural and national communities. The task of interreligious dialogue of traditional religious communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina is to revive the paradigm of “progressive multiculturalism” in bases of which is not just tolerance for the differences but also but a recognition that grants other and the different a right to be different. It should be viewed as a comparative advantage of our Bosnian-Hercegovenian society, not its drawback. The Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina has, in the periods of dispute and destruction of other and different (following the teachings of Islam), been protecting not only human lives of others, but also their worshiping places and other sacred objects. The history of Bosnia and Herzegovina offers numerous cases that represent a paradigm for the relation towards other and different and it must be reviewed.