Pakistan - Women's role in promoting Interfaith Harmony
ISLAMABAD - Dr Marilyn Wyatt, wife of the US ambassador to Pakistan, participated in a women’s interfaith dialogue today at a local shrine.
Participants included over 40 women religious leaders from various faiths, as well as teachers, and civil society activists. Dr Amineh Ahmed Hoti, an anthropologist, author, and noted women’s rights activist, moderated the dialogue, says a press release issued here by US Embassy.
During the dialogue, the participants discussed the role of faith in daily life, the importance of interfaith cooperation, and the important role women play in promoting religious tolerance and interfaith harmony.
Dr Wyatt noted that women especially understood the importance of tolerance, dialogue, and service to humanity.
“Here in Pakistan, where there is such a diversity of peoples and faiths, you have long experience in promoting religious tolerance and fighting those negative forces that want to judge and punish faiths that are different from their own,” Dr Wyatt said.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
Community Noticeboard
Interfaith Calendar
Check out the Interfaith Calendar for the month ahead.
We, as leaders of faith communities, need to develop a more inclusive view of the religious other, to recognise the humanity of the religious other as a starting point. We need to recognise the essential equality of all human beings regardless of religious beliefs. We need to affirm the mutuality and interdependency of all people... We may need even to extend this and recognise that religious other may, just may, have at least some access to the Truth. We may need to accept that the religious others also adopts more or less the same set of essential universal ethical-moral principles we share; that the religious other has feelings of pain and pleasure just like us; that the religious other has similar expectations about their children and family and the preservation of life, property and security; and that the religious other has the same fears and anxieties about the world and the future, just like us.