These few points, though brief, show that Islam has a great role to play in countering the deadly challenges, namely violence and conflict, which haunt the world today. This scheme of Islam is not based on mere ideology, but has a genuine history of practical success to back it. The history of Islam shows that its message of peace is not just a utopian dream, but is a fully practicable programme. It is a historical fact that the Prophet of Islam adopted such a well-considered strategy that all his successes were achieved with surprisingly little bloodshed. The toll of casualties in the revolution he brought about in Arabia amounted to only about a thousand on both sides. This number is comparatively so low that this revolution can rightly be termed bloodless. Thus Islam teaches conflict resolution in a peaceful manner.
The present age is an age of dialogue. I believe dialogue is very beneficial for every religion. Traditionally, people have been familiar with debates. People engage in debate, but don’t know about dialogue in religion.
What is the difference between a dialogue and a debate?
In a debate, you seek to establish your superiority. When there's a debate between two sides, one would seek to establish its superiority over the other. In our youth, there used to be many debates between Hindus and Muslims. Debate is called shastrarth.
A certain book's title was Destroy Kufr, while another's title was: Expose Those Who Speak About Destroying Kufr This is an example of debate. In a debate, your concern is to not win over a person or to convince him. Your concern is to somehow establish your superiority. A dialogue is different. In a dialogue, you get to learn. This is mutual learning. Dialogue means mutual learning. At least I am unaware of those Muslims who have the spirit of dialogue. I believe in the spirit of dialogue. I try to read other religions with an empty mind and dialogue with them with an empty mind. Removing biases and speaking to a person without any sense of superiority leads to dialogue. All scientific branches utilize dialogue. But this has not yet become a part of religious conversations. I have learnt to do dialogue. Unfortunately, religious leaders didn’t promote dialogue.
Unless our leaders don’t initiate dialogue, this culture won’t spread to the masses. I am a great believer in the method of dialogue. I can say that Muslims generally lack the spirit of dialogue.
