As a
Dallasite, Indian American, and a pluralist*,  I welcome the spirit of the program. The recipients were Pakistani-Americans as
well as one Indian American; the writer of this note. 

We are not alone in this short-sightedness; the Chinese-Taiwanese,
Iranians-Saudi, North-South Korea, Israeli-Palestinians and others join us in
our deficiencies, it is indeed human, but it is also human to build cohesive
societies where no one has to live in fear of the other. If we are incapable of
cleansing ourselves with prejudices against each other, then we should not
expect the people back home to do it either. The spirit has to be global. It is
in this spirit, I appreciate the work of Safeer-e-Paksitan program and the
awards night.

In the
interfaith weddings that I officiate, the latest ones being a Muslim-Jain and a Hindu-Christian weddings, I share this, “What the bride and groom have chosen
to do, must be admired by one and all. In this divisive world, where people
have difficulty in agreeing or getting along – they are setting a new standard.
That is learning to respect the otherness of other and accepting the God given
uniqueness of each other. They have additional differences; they both grew up
in different religious traditions.”

Pluralism and interfaith is our future, by the end of 2020, there will not be a
major city in the America, and perhaps in the world, where you will not find people of different faiths working, eating, and doing social things together.
We need to prepare ourselves for those situations to prevent possible
conflicts and lay a good foundation for nurturing goodwill. Exclusive communities will become a thing of the past. 

Guess who pioneered the interfaith?

Indeed, it was Prophet Muhammad, the peace maker. He was perhaps the first
spiritual master who was blessed to have lived amidst three to four different
religious traditions. He lived his preaching, just as Moses, Krishna, Buddha,
Jesus, Nanak, and all the great teachers did. He had regular meetings at his
Mosque with Jews, Christians and others to discuss and learn and share about
each other’s religions.

He was
following the words of Qur’an 49:13 (paraphrase) – the best among you is the
one who makes an effort to know each other. There is a presumption that we
don’t know each other, and most certainly we don’t. By knowing and learning and
accepting each others as we are, we can create better societies – the product
was the Madinah declaration initiated by the Prophet, where all people had
their own religion to follow and practice without interference, it is almost a
predecessor to the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing freedom of religion. 

Of course, there will always be a tiny fraction of a percent of Muslims, Jews,
Christians, Hindus and other who do not follow their own religion resulting in
conflicts and false propaganda, but a majority of the people get
the goodness of their religion.

Example after example, we can trace the essence of his work – conflict
mitigation and goodwill nurturance, and respecting the otherness of others.