Religious Pluralism in Jordan

This paper examines Jordan's strategy for its religious rapprochement movement, focusing on the conduct of the royal family, especially King Abdullah II and Prince Ghazi. Some advantages to the religious rapprochement policies led by the king and royal family of Jordan are their use as foundations of religious authority and political legitimacy, as established by their sacred lineage, and their performance as the 'guardian(s) of Jerusalem,' and the 'birthplace of Christianity.' Using these cultural and historical resources, Jordan is leading the initiative to foster interfaith dialogue, especially between Islam and Christianity. This study shows how Jordan tries to establish its authority and legitimacy through its religious rapprochement movement, and how its rapprochement policy relates to and stands on this foundation. By surveying the religious rapprochement movement as a whole, this paper clarifies the originality of Jordan's religious strategy and of Jordan's legitimacy.

2021

Kemajemukan tidak bisa dihindari, seolah-olah itu adalah takdir manusia. Tetapi manusia sendiri seringkali tidak dapat mentolerir pluralitas ini. Karena intoleransi semacam inilah perang, intimidasi, pengusiran, konflik, dan kekacauan terjadi sepanjang waktu. Padahal, kemajemukan ini merupakan fenomena yang tak terbantahkan. Kita hidup dalam kemajemukan dan kita secara aktif atau pasif terlibat dalam dan bagian dari kemajemukan ini. Kemajemukan melekat pada semua gerakan spasial kita. Oleh karena itu, penerimaan dan eksistensi dengan orang lain atau hidup berdampingan dengan asumsi kesetaraan dalam bingkai kemajemukan adalah kebutuhan yang sangat penting. Karena kemajemukan ini selayaknya menjadi alat relasi bagi manusia untuk hidup damai dengan sesamanya. Namun demikian, agama dalam kehidupan masyarakat yang sebenarnya bisa menjadi fenomena yang sepenuhnya saling bertentangan. Seperti banyak agama lain, Islam juga sering menjadi penyebab konflik. Oleh karena itu, penting untuk meli...

ABSTRACT This paper examines the development of Of cial Islam , or state-sponsored religious institutions, in Jordan. We argue that Jordan s development went through three phases. From its independence in 1947 until the revolution, the state undertook minimal efforts to develop this institution. After the Iranian revolution, however, the state changed course by developing two such institutions the Advisory Council of Dar al-Ifta (Department for Issuing Fatwas) and the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought. These institutional changes set the stage for the regime s new policy of seeking to manage the public religious space. With the rise of Global Jihadism in the late 1990s, however, the state has increasingly empowered both institutions seeking to actively shape the religious space and debate in Jordan.

Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 1st International Conference of Global Education and Society Science, ICOGESS 2019,14 March, Medan, North Sumatera, Indonesia, 2020

Harmony among people of different religious background is crucial concern in societal discussions lately in the context of Indonesia. The diversity of beliefs existing in Indonesia is a valuable treasure, but at the same time it presents a huge challenge for community life with the diverse available ways of thinking. The strength of each religious group tends to produce exclusivism to their respective religions. As a result, conflict between religious people is unavoidable. It is for this reason that pluralistic outlook is a major necessity in order to nurture harmonious living among people who even though are different in the religion they embrace, but are able to accept and respect one another.

As a result of the interaction between religions, globalization has created a new context for various theories of religious pluralism. For the sake of brevity, the beginning of the 21st century witnesses that religious pluralism is one of the most basic challenges for different theologies of various traditional religions. Thence, religious pluralism is one with which all theologies are somehow expected to face. Understanding cultural religious pluralism requires a high level of knowledge. Individuals or communities who have a sectarian mindset and believe that only their religion or denomination represent the truth have no share in this level. The Muslims, as long as they stay within the borders of Islam, can find no evidence in the Qur’an or in the other sources that supports their claim that they are possessed of the truth to the exclusion of others. Turkey, in respect of both its religious and political culture, has the experience of developing and designating the ideal of pluralism. It is a necessity for the Turkish intelligentsia in general and for the members of the theology faculties in particular to promote and maintain the ideal of religious pluralism. It is an obligation for the actors above to support and assign this notion on account of the international community and Turkey’s geopolitical position. In this paper, I analyse and give a critical definition of religious pluralism in search for the possibility of religious pluralism in Turkey.

2021

his article aims to explain and analyze the concept of cultural Ikhtilaf / Multiculturalism in the Qur’ān. Islam introduces a model for human communication between cultures at the levels of individuals and groups. This model is based on human values that guarantee the dignity of man and his human rights. The principle of Multiculturalism in Islam means the acceptance of the other different person by establishing relations that are based on acquaintance, dialogue, sharing and T Islam and Pluralism

This study aims at reconsidering the current position of Christian Churches and Arab Christians in Jordan, by analyzing the specific issues of ecclesiastic identity, citizenship and political roles while contextualizing this study within the broader Jordanian state and “nation” building process of the 20th century. The objective of this study is to offer an analytical overview of these recent historical vicissitudes, by identifying the developments and changes experienced by Christian Churches and Arab Christians as an integral part of contemporary Jordanian history. This inevita- bly entails the analysis of the community dimension and how it has been structured and integrated within the Hashemite state system. The overall aim of this paper is to highlight possible new paths of analysis regarding the Christian presence as part of the history of the Hashemite state.

The Middle East today is undoubtedly ridden by a multitude of conflicts, those that are currently in progress and many awaiting the propitious time to declare themselves officially in existence. The ultimate question of identity has never been raised, never considered, let alone solved in total fairness. In the Arab world everyone was Arab even if he were Berber/Amazigh, Kurd, Copt, Druze or else. The pan-Arab ideology negated all identities that existed in this region either by persuasion, dictatorship or religion and still do.

The paper aims to reconsider the 19th century history of Transjordan, with particular reference to the condition of the local Christian minority. Firstly, the paper briefly describes the main aspects of the Transjordanian socio-political field at the beginning of the 19th century. Secondly, the paper reconsiders the course of the process of modernization that took root during the second part of the 19th century, and it explains how the overlapping process between different cultural logics worked. The socio-political development of Transjordan is not only a direct consequence of foreign activities, but also the result of the effective overlap between these elements – modern - with the particular tribal political and social cultural structure of Transjordan – pre-modern. The paper points out the development of the Christian religious communities within Transjordanian society under the auspices of Western missionaries and the reactions of the local population to their activities. The religious communities represented a bridge favouring the transition from the tribal dimension to the state, both at the time of the Ottomans and of the Emirate. Finally, the paper evaluates the most important consequences produced by the overlapping process on the local socio-political field before the fall of the Ottoman Empire on which the Hashemite Emirate of Transjordan was later founded.

Pluralism in Islamic Contexts: Ethics, Politics and Modern Challenges (Springer, Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations, 2021), 1-32. , 2021

Abstract This paper overviews the meanings of especially religious pluralism in the Islamic intellectual and political tradition, past and present, with reference to some major scholarly works in tafsīr, theology, and philosophy. First, before high- lighting the importance of pluralism in modern studies of religion, from both his- torical and theological perspectives, brief reference to some classical “Islamic” texts on inter-and-intra comparative religions will be mentioned, not only to show that comparative religions and religious pluralism as scholarly disciplines are not inexistent in the tradition, but most importantly to show that religious pluralism could flourish in premodern times even when the episteme was dominantly “reli- gious” - to use the terms here with reservations. The point here is that the plurality of interpreting one tradition, and the neutral or biased interpretations of other tradi- tions, is a confirmation of religious pluralism, however problematic this confirma- tion might be in the political or theological spheres. Second, with reference to a few recent works in the field of “Islamic” intellectual history, tentative definitions on what Islam, Islamic, plurality, pluralism, and pluralization mean will be introduced. Third, examples of how pluralism is examined in contemporary Islamic thought are provided. Keywords Pluralism · Religious pluralism · Plurality · Pluralization · Inclusivism · Exclusivism · Cumulative tradition · Muslim world · Islamic world