Thaindian News

New Delhi, July 26 (IANS) Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid Monday said Islam has played a “great role” in shaping the country’s “Indianness” in terms of art, culture and social behaviour.
“Islam stands for peace, brotherhood and prosperity and in India this religion has played a great role in shaping the art, culture and social behaviour that today typically signifies the ‘Indianness’,” Khurshid said, releasing a book on Islam here.

He stressed on the need to “soak our souls into the idea of secularism”.

Secularism, he said, was “love and respect for all religions, and include it in every aspect of our lives”.

Releasing the book, “Islam aur Islami Quiz - Ilm ka Khazana” by a well-known scholar and social worker of Aligarh, Ikhlas Ahmad Sherwani, Khurshid said the world “today recognises the fact that the path of secularism that India had adopted decades ago is becoming even more relevant today when many people talk of clashes of civilisations or of ways of life”.

“In India all communities are able to live constantly in peace and harmony,” he said.

The book contains articles on the Islamic message of peace by world-renowned writers, including Allama Taj Mohammad Khan from the Al Azhar Islamic University of Cairo.

The book stresses that Islam does not mean violence and strife, instead it is meant to harmonise the world by spreading the message of peace, brotherhood and oneness.

Narrating his personal experiences, Sherwani said the true followers of Islam or Hinduism “never indulge in violence or terrorism. It is only a handful of people with distorted minds and a myopic vision that vitiate the atmosphere.”