Dubai: People are not identified by their faith, when committing a crime, but Muslims are, said Professor Yasir Suleiman, Director of the Centre of Islamic Studies, His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Sa’id Professor of Modern Arabic Studies, and a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge at the seventh Emirates Airline Festival of Literature.

The festival, which began March 5 and ends March 7, is being held at the InterContinental Dubai Festival City and is hosting renowned authors from across the globe, journalists and professors to speak on subjects concerning the region.

Suleiman spoke about the importance of moving from interfaith dialogue to intercultural relations in modern day societies.

“Rather than being a cause of the problem, religion can and should be a source of solution for conflicts that exist in the region and beyond,” Suleiman said.

Shared experience

Suleiman gave an example whereby people from different faiths came together to share a meal. They all cooked traditional dishes and sat on one table to share the food.

He explained that what appeared to be interfaith dialogue was in fact, an act of intercultural bonding.

“There is absolutely no faith in the sense that we recognise it here,” he said. “People were just getting together, cooking and eating.”

He also mentioned that people do, however, want to separate the two, since they believe culture sometimes corrupts faith. By separating the two, a bigger distance is created to avoid any issues.

“I don’t think you can separate faith from culture, it is not a matter of either or, it is a matter of both,” he said.

He also highlighted that faiths should communicate and practice dialogue to reach a common ground.

“Interfaith dialogue really took off with great speed and intensity after 9/11, so interfaith dialogue is crisis driven,” said Suleiman.

“There’s a crisis and we need to start talking to each other across faiths.”

He said there were times he was asked to comment as a ‘British-Muslim’ on an act of violence, but refused, stating people must stop being compartmentalised according to their faith.

— Maria Botros is a trainee at Gulf News.