THE BRITISH ISLAMIC CENTER DEPARTMENT OF COMPARATIVE DIVINITY
THE MEETING OF COMPARATIVE DIVINITY THE ISLAMIC INTELLECTUAL MEETING (20)
May, 21, 2002

The Islamic-Christian-Jewish Studies
The address of Dr. Abdul-Karim al-Zubaydi, Chairman of the Meeting

Comparative Divinity

Whilst the human mental powers rise in maturity and the human communities arrive at levels enabling them to acknowledge the existence of other religions possessing their own notions about the universe, existence and humankind and whenever individuals interconnect through the means of communications facilitated by the technological and scientific evolution, man's exigency to know the others' ideas, civilizations and notions about the universe, existence and humankind increases progressively more.

In this very stage of the age of humanity, we are experiencing the age of the 'one-village' where the developing means of communication, including the electronic, have made the world look like one village. In the midst of that, man has undergone the importance of a cultural communication aimed at becoming acquainted with each other's civilizations. For this reason, a kind of communication called the 'Dialogue of Civilizations' has come out. A further communication called the 'Dialogue of Religions' has issued forth. It is not unacceptable to say that what is meant by the Dialogue of Civilizations is the very Dialogue of Religions; such religions represent the most prominent manifestation of civilizations, especially for the Muslims.

All over the years that followed the Second World War, man in the West was engaged in a distinctive cultural and political conflict between the Eastern Socialistic Camp headed by the former Soviet Union and the Western Capitalistic Camp headed by the United States of America. This conflict was associated with vehement informational warfare in support of which both the parties mobilized all the technological and informational mass media for purpose of convincing the people who belonged to their camps of the validity of the concepts, courses and viewpoints on the basis of which the pillars of each party's civilization and political system are established.

Each camp could make the people belonging to it live in a sketched circle by establishing an impregnable intellectual barrier against the people of the adversary camp. Yet, all such intellectual and cultural barriers wrecked as soon as one of the two camps collapsed by the cease of the so-called 'cold war' allowing man to come into contact with, see, hear and read about various civilizations without any restraint. Thanks to the modern technological means of communication in general and the Internet in particular, man has found the events following in close succession and found himself in close proximity to others' ideas and thinking wherever they are. Moreover, man has become able to hear and feel the others' approaches, pains, hopes and even whispers.

The Power that alone held the reins of leadership on this world has known for certain that this is the age of man's receptiveness to the other civilizations and that the fittest civilization is that which is able to attract people far and wide and, thus, become the central civilization on this earth. Additionally, that single power, in the present day, has known that Islam is the one and only civilization that enjoys all the elements of prosperity and power through its adoption of knowledge and wisdom as the path taking to the sound way of living, its encouragement of seeking knowledge, its admiration of man in both body and spirit, its concentration on reason, its respect for the freedom of thinking and its objective opinion about the universe, existence and man. From this cause, Islam has been the fittest to represent man's central civilization on the earth.

As a result, the single power presently dominating over the earth has considered Islam as its cultural enemy and, in this regard, has prepared against it all means of rivalry possible for sake of overcoming, prevailing over or restraining it in the minds of its followers. In spite of the efficacy of other means of military and political rivalry, the means used for achieving this goal is the attempts to misrepresent Islam in the view of the Western individuals using technical and academic processes of forging lies against Islam and the Prophet of Islam by way of employing Jew and Christian theologians to study the Islamic reference books and heritage then present them in such a deformed way encouraging the Western individuals to reject Islam.

From this point, the significance of Comparative Divinity comes to the fore in the age of the one-village world, the age of the desire to discover whatever concepts there are with the other peoples concerning the universe, existence and humankind and the age in which the single dominant power has realized Islam as the one and only civilization that is able to attract humankind everywhere and, hence, it has taken Islam as cultural rival.

The study of Judaism and Christianity from their original sources for the sake of using them as witnesses on the truth and authenticity of Islam through the Jewish and Christian historical texts is the best thing ever made for presenting the true face of Islam to the Western people. Such effort stands for bringing forward a witness-that is decent from the viewpoint of its followers at least-testifying the genuineness and truth of Islam and the Prophet of Islam before the embracers of Judaism and Christianity and what is more important is conveying this testimony to all peoples all around the earth by the use of the modern technological means of communication.

Having undertaken this momentous task, His eminence Sayyid Sami al-Badri, at the outset, learnt the original languages of the Old and New Testaments, examined numerous version of the various ages of these Books and investigated them as carefully and methodically as possible. As a result, he has become well-versed in the two religions-Judaism and Christianity and, consequently, has been an authority in Comparative Divinity endeavoring to present the testimonies of these two religions on the truth of Islam to every individual universally.

I now invite his eminence Sayyid Sami al-Badri to kindly introduce his efforts and method in this field.