Rumi’s View on Other Religions

Interest in other religions and cultures opens people up towards broader horizons and greater depths. As a new religion, Islam entered a world with many other religions and Muslims needed to discover how they were to relate to them. In this relation, Islam held that humankind from its very beginning received a kind of primordial religion, giving guidance how people should live. Muslim thinkers have reflected much on the fact of the diversity of religions. It is mostly assumed that humankind started as one community with the faith of the primordial monotheistic religion. Then this community split into a number of peoples to whom God sent prophets. In its essence, Islamic mysticism is one of the fruits on the tree of Qur anic piety. Rumi, one of the celebrated Islamic mystics believes that there are many ways to reach God. The variety of the roads is marvelous. One of the basis of Rumi’s perspective 0n other religions is his belief in Unity of existence; by relying on it, suggests that denying of other religion is wrong, or at least worthless. Going beyond the concept of People of the Book, Rumi embraces toleration of religions. Since the beloved is only one, religions are nothing but the same. On various occasions, Rumi points out the differences among societies, cultures and religions, as well as the diversity among members of the same society, religion and culture and says that these differences are not incidental or outcomes of diverse historical developments, but are the results of Divine design.