Journal of religious culture = Journal für Religionskultur
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65
I would like to begin my presentation with the quotation of the first sentence of Shafii’s Trea-tise er-Risala, the first work which has been reached us until now, concerning foundation of Islamic jurisprudence. “Praise be to God gratitude for one of His favors can only be paid through another favor of him. And this favor generates favor to be bestowed, wherefore, one should feel obliged continuously to pay gratitude to God for each favor.” It is possible to conceive that Mercy (al-Rahma), the common expression of all favors granted by the Almighty Creature of human beings, has two salient characteristics: one is vertical that is with regard to the Creator and creatures, and the other is horizontal that is concerning hu-man relations among themselves as well as with other creatures. When the concept of Mercy is evaluated in perspective of God-human being relations in the existing world, it indicates that God’s favors, without discrimination, are granted to all human beings. ...
62
First, why I have avoided to use in this paper the expression ‘the Composite Culture’, which even is used in our Constitution of India to describe unified one culture of our country.1 It is because such a demand is not only against one of the basic realities of our Indian way of life, it also goes against the divine will, which was and is behind this created world with different shades and colours. In this regard the following observation made by Dr. Ram Singh is also noteworthy: It is debatable issue whether there is a separate entity called “composite culture” of India, or it is merely the interaction of various cultures which, instead of resulting into an integrated culture, are still in a position to maintain their separate identities. Beside what Dr. Ram Singh says, the reality is that multi or pluralism is part of our Indian or even Asian way of life. It is quite a different thing, if some of us are not willing to accept this truth. But it is still there, in the form of multi-cultures, multi-languages, multireligions and multiethnicities. Therefore the question of ‘composite culture’ is not only debatable, but also a doubtful principle, unless we are willing to take it as an eschatology reality. I do not intend to deal with this point in detail here, because of the time factor. But we may be able to come back to this question of ‘composite culture, in our discussion if you will wish to do so. ...