Alan Wolfe is hopeful that in the long term moderation and tolerance in religion worldwide will triumph. He notes John Locke’s admonition in his (1689) A Letter Concerning Toleration: religion should never be a tool of governmental coercion.
For our purposes in the IME course, Muhammad was a thousand years ahead of Locke in mediating God’s admonition in the Qur’an, “Let there be no compulsion in religion” (s.2:256). More moderate voices in the Muslim world to watch include those of Egyptian leaders Amr Khaled and Mustafa Hosni, Iran’s Abdolkarim Soroush, and in the United States Imam Yahya Hendi.
Wolfe notes that,” The world will never be rid of fanaticism; globalization is just as capable of disseminating extreme ideas as it is of advancing moderation. But fanaticism should not be confused with religious intensity. One can pray passionately to God and lead an otherwise balanced life, just as one can be monomaniacal about things having nothing to do with the divine.”
Wolfe concludes, “And religious leaders prone to fanaticism are likely to find that the price of using force to spread God’s word, or to try to monopolize it, will be a greatly diminished hold on the future.”
Alan Wolfe, “And the Winner is…: The Coming Relgious Peace,” The Atlantic.com, March 2008
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