This article was written by Dr. Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, Emirati academic and senior fellow at Harvard University, and the opinions expressed below are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of CNN.
The opening of the Abrahamic House in Abu Dhabi was rich material for many articles during the past week, including Rashid Al-Khayoun’s article, in which he said, “The contiguousness of a mosque, church, and synagogue took place under the Ottoman Empire with a message that the inhabitants of the empire are Muslims, Christians, and Jews. There was no controversy at that time, as is the case today about The Ibrahimi House in Abu Dhabi is one of those who defy tolerance.
In the same context, Hisham Alwan wrote an article about the Abrahamic House, emphasizing that “dialogue between religions is not a call for the unity of religions, and the construction of an Abrahamic house in which a mosque, church, and synagogue are adjacent in one spot is other than the explicit call for an Abrahamic religion that brings together Jews, Christians, and Muslims in one common religion.” “.
These articles are a small sampling of what some in the Ibrahimi House said in its first week. However, there are others who launched a fierce campaign against this Abrahamic House even before its establishment, exaggerating the questioning of the UAE’s intentions and unjustly accusing it of seeking to create a new religion.
No one has tried before and no one will try to come up with a new religion, for Islam is the seal of all religions. The Abrahamic House certainly did not come to merge Islam, Christianity and Judaism into one religion. There is nothing in the Abrahamic House that suggests the establishment of a new religion. On the contrary, the place was designed to respect the privacy and independence of each religion. Everyone has his religion, faith, book, prayer, place of worship, and his way to the Lord of the Worlds. This is a place for dialogue and contiguousness between religions, confirming that Islam is a religion of tolerance and moderation.
The unification of religions into one religion is another. They are the Emirates preoccupied with their present and developmental future. However, the UAE is making a special and sincere effort to promote coexistence, dialogue and neighborliness between religions. You will not find a country where tolerance is embodied as it is embodied in the Emirates at all levels. Coexistence and tolerance among religions and civilizations are among the necessities of this time, after the forces of extremism, extremism, and fundamentalism were unleashed in the Arab region and throughout the globe and reached unprecedented levels. From here, the Abrahamic House may achieve the minimum level of coexistence of religions in love and peace.
The idea of adjacent religions is not a fad of this era. It has been in effect at all times without raising objection or sterile controversy. The neighborhood of a mosque, a church and a synagogue in one spot that existed in the past. The new thing is that the UAE, as usual, is proactive in restoring life to the neighborhood of religions in its contemporary form, to symbolize peace and peace in a time of extremism and extremism that spread to all religions. There are those who are hostile to the Abrahamic House by virtue of its association with the Emirates. If this project had been launched in a country other than the UAE, there would have been no such confusion from the enemies of tolerance, coexistence and coexistence between religions.
It seems that some have forgotten that the UAE is a Muslim country, and that 100% of its one million people are Muslims. Also, 76% of its population of about 10 million people are Muslims. In the UAE, there are more than 12 thousand mosques, including the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi, which is among the largest mosques and mosques in the world. The UAE preceded everyone a quarter of a century ago by launching the Dubai Quran Award, the largest in the world. Then an ignorant and malicious person comes to outbid the UAE in its conversion to Islam and believes that the goal of the Abrahamic House is to abolish the Islamic religion.
Away from the misunderstanding and skepticism that the Abrahamic House is exposed to, the UAE will continue to consolidate the values of human brotherhood, and will continue to work on the juxtaposition of religions with great care, and to confront hate speech and misinformation that bears the imprint of takfiri groups stuck in the past, such as the ISIS of this era and the extremists of the nation and the Brotherhood that suffers currently from fragmentation.
Tolerance is one of the constants of the Emirates. The UAE’s future civilizational and renaissance projects will not stop on earth and in space. And the facts of recent years have proven that what happens in the Emirates does not stay in the Emirates. In the Emirates, religions side by side do not quarrel. This is the origin and chapter of the UAE’s emerging Arab development model. Therefore, the principle of contiguous religions will quickly spread to the rest of the countries in the region that are keen on the principle of tolerance. The most prominent example of this is the construction of the Great Transfiguration Complex in Egypt, which will open in April 2024, where there will be a mosque, church and synagogue side by side in the Holy Valley of Tua in South Sinai, in the manner of the Abrahamic House in Abu Dhabi.
Therefore, when the invalidity of establishing a new religion was revealed, some arbitrarily linked the Abrahamic House to the Abrahamic Accord and normalization with Israel in order to fight it politically after the failure of fighting it ideologically. Attempts to politicize the Abrahamic House, far from its noble goals, have already failed. The Abrahamic House was signed in February 2019, while the Abrahamic Accord was signed in September 2021. That is, the Abrahamic House preceded the Abrahamic Accord, which is the result of complex political exchanges that lasted for several years, while the Abrahamic House emerged from the mantle of the Human Fraternity Document, and has absolutely nothing to do with politics. .
The announcement of the Abrahamic House in Abu Dhabi came in the presence of religious scholars, while the Abrahamic Accord was signed in Washington in the presence of politicians. Any connection between them is malicious and absurd. Normalization with Israel has one compass, which is the national interest, and it does not need a religious, ideological or ideological cover.
While the talk continues about the Abrahamic House, whether in praise or defamation, one field visit to the site is sufficient to confirm beyond any doubt that the goal of this civilized house is to promote coexistence between religions and to confirm that tolerance exists in Islam more than any other religion and that the coexistence of religions is now regaining its splendor. On the land of the Emirates.
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