Present clearer picture of Islam, Muslims urged

PUTRAJAYA: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak (pix) has called on Muslims to offer to non-Muslims a clearer picture of what Islam is all about.
"In today's society, Islam is largely misunderstood. Some fear it. Others have formed stereotypes about it. It is up to us to change these perceptions and offer a clearer picture of what Islam is all about," he said.
They should see this as part of their responsibility to bring back the glorious days of Islam while repairing relationships that have been significantly frayed or destroyed over the past few decades, he added.
Najib said that the Muslim's challenge should be less about influencing people but more about changing perceptions by offering the faith.
"In our endeavour to move beyond fear and distrust to provide scope for both universality and cultural authenticity, we will draw on the essential wisdom that is the common heritage of all humankind.
"We believe we can merge into one mutually respectful society if we transcend all of our differences and champion each other's interests with 'One Voice, One Aspiration'," he said in his written foreword to participants of the Putrajaya Premier Lecture Series here today.
Najib also attended the lecture, titled "Past Achievements and Present Challenges in the Muslim World", by Magdalen College Oxford Study of the Islamic World Fellow Dr Farhan Ahmad Nizami at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC).
Farhan, in his speech, said more Muslims need to join other non-Muslims in the urgent need to balance the creation and distribution of wealth so that a good life was available to all, including the future generation.
"Muslims' ongoing efforts to develop techniques of financing and investment that are free of usury and uncertainty are pertinent to wider concerns about ethnical investment, fair and genuinely free trade and abolishing the export of poverty, instability and pollution to the poorest and weakest on this earth," he said.
Farhan said Muslims needed to put in effort to teach values that are authentically derived from religious commitment.
"It needs to be forward-looking, outward looking and comfortably multicultural, willing to learn, to go aboard and confidently Islamic," he added.