I am often invited by religious authorities in the Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia to attend meetings that are held to urge people to follow Islamic faith and law, while avoiding any debate connected to politics or political rights. Political rights, my hosts insist, are maintained by the ruling regimes themselves, and these follow the teachings of the Koran.

Submission for Syria in present

 Inter-religious dialogue, in the case of Muhammad al-Habash (b. 1962), is both a good in itself and a means to other goods.  It is to be undertaken for the simple reason that all humanity has been ennobled by God (in line with Q 17:70), a theological viewpoint that has led him to formulate a largely qur’ānic argument against any “monopoly of salvation.”  This line of reasoning, which confirms the salvific worth of other religions, demonstrates that his evaluation of other religions goes beyond polite tolerance (to the dismay of many co-religionists who find his argument a threat to the work of calling people to Islam as singular route to salvation).