Cheikh Saleh Abdullah Kamel, head of the Arab Radio and Television network (ART), and president of the Dellat Al-Barakah Group, was recently a guest of AUB. Invited by President John Waterbury, he spoke at College Hall on April 29 to a jam-packed audience. His lecture, “Islam’s view of other religions,” was a timely eye-opener.

Cheikh Saleh began by giving praise to God who created the earth and made human beings its vicegerents.

Cheikh Saleh called his meeting with the audience a "starting point" and "an awakening of the sincere desire to communicate, far from closed nationalism and narrow-minded zeal..."  He stressed dialog, to which all of God's messengers and prophets adhere, "without haughtiness or discrimination."

Cheikh Saleh addressed two main themes in his talk: How Islam views the non-Muslem and the concept of Jihad in Islam.

Cheikh Saleh described the position of non-Muslims in Islamic countries, according to Islam. They were free non-Muslim subjects (ahl adh-dhimma), they kept their religion and only paid a tax if they were sane of mind and of body. The elderly, the women, the children and the monks were exempted.

Cheikh Saleh went on to explain that Islam was always a religion of mercy and of knowledge seeking. Mercy, he said, in Islam extends to animals by requirement. He gave examples of a woman who rescued a dog and God forgave all her sins, and another woman who was sent to Hell because she starved her cat.

He also pointed out that since its beginning Islam has fought against slavery and racial discrimination.

In discussing "the concept of Jihad in Islam," Cheikh Saleh said that this matter needed to be clarified in word and in law. He said Jihad is an invitation to freedom, and is not always fighting. When it is an act of war, it is in defense of the oppressed, but should not transgress limits and should be only "proportional to the act of aggression, no more than that."

Cheikh Saleh concluded by thanking AUB for inviting him, saying that it "does represent a lighthouse of civilization." He added: "The truth is that all of mankind is in the same boat. If a part perishes, the remainder will drown..."

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