There is no clear definition of the word religious intolerance. However it can best be described as the absence of being unwilling to put up with someone else’s beliefs. In clear and simple terms we can thus posit that religious intolerance means not tolerating beliefs that differ from one’s own. The issue of religious hostilities dates back a long time ago. The quarrel that ensued between the Israelites and Egyptians from the Biblical accounts can be said to have been the inability of both parties to encourage or accommodate their different beliefs. In the end, it resulted in the loss of so many lives.
When the birth of Jesus Christ was publicized, so many children were murdered because the King had misinterpreted the prophesy of John the Baptist, and probably thought that the one who would dethrone him had been born. As he grew up, he began his message. He reached the point when he could no longer be tolerated, and so he was murdered in one of the most brutal means in the history of man.
The great prophet Mohammad sought and got enlightenment after thirty days in a cave. After gaining this new experience, he began preaching his message of love and denouncing some activities in his society. The member of his own society got angry with him and then began persecuting him and his followers. This also led to many deaths as the persecuted had to put up some form of resistance.
Mahatma Gandhi the great thinker was not also left out in this kind of intolerable activities. There was a time, he wanted to pray inside a church and the members of that church turned him away. He got angry and turned his back on Christianity as a religion but not on Jesus Christ, because like Christ, he lived an exemplary life. Who knows; if that had not happened, he would probably have converted to Christianity.
There was however something peculiar to both Christ and Prophet Mohammad. While their own people rose against them, they were accommodated by outsiders. For instance when Herod ordered the killing of Children, the parents of Jesus Christ took him away to far away Egypt. In the same manner, while the prophet was chased away by his own people from Mecca, the people of Medina received him with arms wide open.
Since those days, the question of tolerance has in one way the other hampered the growth of man in understanding his fellow man and society. Insolence towards each other’s religion has given rise to truculent activities. As a result many religious wars have been fought.
But one thing the followers of all these great thinkers have failed to do is to follow the example and teachings of their various masters. There are so many lessons to be learnt from the kind of lives they all led.
Jesus Christ put it succinctly to his disciples that he had not come to die for the Jews but that he came to save the world. For this reason he paid the tax collector an august visit, even when his admirers had written him (i.e. the tax collectors) off.
If every man should follow this example, we can be sure that problems of religious wars and crises would be put to rest. And if this is achieved, can it not be said that he has achieved his aim of saving the world in that respect? The prophet before he died advised every Muslim and every man to dress his neighbor as he would dress himself. He also advised every man to feed his neighbor as he would feed himself. This in simple terms means loving everybody irrespective of their beliefs. After all, he had been tutored by some Jewish business men; he was doing business with before deciding to serve “Allah”.
To further press home this view point, the achievements of Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, cannot be over-looked. He himself in a bid changed some certain things which were not right, especially the Caste system which was in itself discriminatory, sought and got enlightenment. And in his Noble Eight Path teachings, he preached against lies, shedding of blood, and wrong ways of speaking, having wrong resolve (which includes religious intolerance), taking wrong actions, wrong means of livelihood and much more. Paying lip-service to this issue is not enough; every hand must be on deck to address this matter.
Religious uprising where ever they occurred have destroyed a lot of things, from Islamic Jihads to the era of the reformation in the 16th century. Such rumpuses hindered economic growth in the periods they occurred. Addressing this issue is so important in that some crises are miss-interpreted to be either religious wars or that religious undertones are not lacking in them. A typical example of this until recently has been the difficulty in differentiating the problems bedeviling the Arabs and the Israelites from religion.
Finally, to better appreciate this position, let us imagine what would have happened to the great Jesus Christ if after his family fled to Egypt, he had been treated with contempt. Also if the great prophet Mohammad had not been tolerated by the people of Medina after been harassed by the people at Mecca; would there have been a religion called Islam today?
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