While Muslims and non-Muslims alike may believe that Islam teaches that anyone who is not of that faith will be condemned to Hell, Mohammad Hassan Khalil says in his book Islam and the Fate of Others: The Salvation Question (Oxford University Press, 2012) that his reading of four leading thinkers in Islam argues for a more inclusive view of who will share in the ultimate salvation. He concludes that these prominent Islamic scholars believed, with varying nuances, that God’s mercy would trump other considerations and allow for most of humanity to be saved. This is significant because some Muslims have used the presumed damnation of others to justify acts of terrorism.
Khalil is an assistant professor of religious studies at Michigan State University.
Following are excerpts of Khalil’s interview with Diverse:
DI: Why do you think you personally were drawn to this subject?
MHK: Being raised as a Muslim in a largely non-Muslim society, the question of non-Muslim salvation is going to be in my mind, and it is going to be an issue when you have fellow Muslims saying that only Muslims can be saved. You look around, and you might have non-Muslim friends, Christian friends, Jewish friends and atheist friends — and trying to grapple with this can lead to many sleepless nights.
DI: I was particularly intrigued by your discussion that Islam says about the fate of non-Muslim s is important because “how one views the other affects how one interacts with the other.” Could you elaborate on that?
MHK: When you view the other as “the damned,” it will certainly affect how you interact with that individual. Now, the effect could be positive or negative. In my own life, when I viewed non-Muslims as being damned, I had both extremes. On the one hand, I might be very courteous, but on the other hand, maybe I wouldn’t value them as much. When I adopted a more inclusive view, I found that the line between them and me was very thin, if there at all. I think that when you can consider others as equal to yourself, it allows you to appreciate them more, to have genuine care for them and to have better interactions.
