Wonderful Unity in our Religious Mix

October 24, 2006

Source: Trinidad and Tobago Express

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_opinion?id=161039537

AT a ceremony organised by the three Government Ministries located in the Riverside Plaza in Port of Spain last Wednesday, the point was made on several occasions that Trinidad and Tobago is certainly one of few countries in the world where both the Hindu festival of Divali and the Muslim festival of Eid-ul-Fitr could be held together.

This speaks to the high degree of religious tolerance and understanding in our country, and the great tradition of religious and ethnic diversity upon which we have to build.

Muslims in Trinidad and Tobago make up roughly eight per cent of the population, but their strict numbers, as today's national holiday signifies, says nothing about the size of their influence on our civilisation.

Recorded in some encyclopaedias as the youngest of the world's great religions, Islam was developed in Arabia, an area that was one of history's most significant melting pots. Islam, it has been revealed, followed closely the traditions of Judaism and Christianity and in time it acknowledged the validity of both of them. Some Muslims even believe that the prophets Abraham and Moses as well as Jesus Christ, all preached Islam but that their followers changed their teachings into what they are today.