Islam seen from Perspectives on Dialogue and Communication: The Traditional Shar⊂ī Structure of Communication

ABSTRACT

Due to political, economic and cultural conflict between the West and the Muslim world, the importance of engaging interfaith dialogue with Muslims has become more widely recognized. One cannot, however, expect to glean a meaningful result from interfaith dialogue that is tried without being considered an Islamic frame of reference which Muslims use to understand their tradition and to form their perception of non-Muslims.This essay finds an Islamic frame of reference for communication in the traditionalSunnī shar⊂ī vision, and examines a mechanism of communication between God and men as exemplified in the four sources of the law: (1) Qur⊃ān as the venue for communication between God and the Prophet; (2) Ḥadīth between the Prophet and Muslims; (3) Ijmā⊂ and Qiyās through which Muslims endeavor to discover God’s law. An assessment of the mechanism would bring us to the conclusion that meaningful interfaith dialogue between Muslims and non-Muslims in a religiously plural modern world depends on the Muslim education that teaches how to reinterpret within the context of modern society the messages contained in the Qur⊃ān and the Ḥadīth.