Asghar Ali Engineer

(Secular Perspective, April 16-30, 2012)

 

In the third week of February this year I received a letter from Prime Minister of Bhutan inviting me to a one day high level meeting in UNO, New York on behalf of the King of Bhutan on ‘Wellbeing and Happiness’ which will be attended by various heads of states, civil society members and professors and intellectuals. I was requested to speak as Islamic scholar and Muslim religious leader. The meeting was to be held on 2nd April and I was also requested to stay on for two more days i.e. 3-4 April for follow on discussions to evolve a concrete programme.

The letter of invitation from Prime Minister of Bhutan Jigmi Y. Thinley said, “Through your own outstanding work, you have set a sterling example of positive and peaceful inter-faith  dialogue that deserves to be  model for the world. I have particularly appreciated your advocacy of “progressive Islamic discourse” that promotes “questioning minds, as expressed in your recent Deutsche Welle interview. Creating an education system that promotes critical thinking and holistic worldview is a task close to my heart, the letter said.

The P.M.’s letter further said, As Prime Minister of Bhutan, whose King declared three decades ago that “Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product”  your progressive vision is very much attuned to that of my own country. Indeed, it is precisely because your work is so similar in spirit to Bhutan’s own goals and aspirations and to what the world so urgently needs that I am writing to request your participation at a crucial High-Level Meeting to be held on 2nd April 2012 at United Nations headquarters in New York.”

I accepted the invitation and reached New York on 30stApril to take part in the said High Level Meeting. I, along with some other invitees were made to stay in Millennium U.N. Plaza Hotel which happens to be just opposite the U.N. building. The meeting was to begin from 10 a.m. but as entry into UN building is not so easy and one has to go through rigours of security so we were asked to reach the ECOSOC building of UN complex (i.e. ecological and socio-economic block) at 8 a.m. We were all seated in the main hall by about 9-30 a.m.

There were heads of states, ex-heads of states, all representatives of various countries in the UN, members of diplomatic corps and leaders of various political parties. The inaugural panel consisted of distinguished personalities like Banki –moon, Secretary General of UNO, Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Mr. Jigmi Y. Thinley, Prime Minister of Bhutan, Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz, President of the 66th Session of General Assembly of UNO and Ms. Laura Chinchilla, President of Costa Rica who was the keynote speaker.

The time schedule was so tight that each of the speaker on the inaugural panel was given three minutes to speak except Ms. Laura Chinchilla who spoke for 10 minutes as keynote speaker and as Costa Rica was awarded best country award for its ecological achievements on which she threw light. It is also to be noted that Costa Rica is the only country in the world which does not maintain any army. Thus Costa Rica (which I had visited in 2009) is a model country, like Bhutan for a sustainable and peaceful world which was one of the themes of the High Level Meeting.

Ms. Jayanthi Natrajan, Special Envoy of the Prime Minister of India and Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Government of India) spoke on providing the perspective of a powerful emerging economy with critical role in shaping the new economic paradigm. Ministers and Vice-ministers and other representative of various governments also spoke in the inaugural panel.

Various panels were constituted for post-inaugural session. These panels were on Well Being and Happiness, ecological sustainability, On Efficient Use of Resources, Panel on Fair Distribution and in the afternoon panel consisting of religious leaders to give their views on the subject and on which I was included from Islamic viewpoint, was also constituted.

On the panel of religious leaders there were Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Christian and Muslim representatives. Hinduism was represented by Mr. Mohan Munasinghe of Ramkrishna Mission and I represented Islam. Christianity was represented by Ms. Roshi Joan Helifax of France and Judaism was represented by Rabbi David Cadman of Netherlands. Buddhism was represented by Ven.Anil Sakya of Bhutan.

All speakers on this panel were highly learned and enlightened persons and were working for peace, inter-religious dialogue and sustainable development. All of them felt that religion can contribute much to the goal of well being and happiness of humanity and religion must be used as a rich resource for this purpose. However, it should not be empty rhetoric but a sound reality.

I particularly appreciated the spirit with which Jewish leader Rabbi David Cadman spoke to promote peace and happiness with reference to Jewish sources. He, in fact, prayed for ending the miseries of Palestinian people who were struggling for their liberation and making great sacrifices. Everybody appreciated the spirit with which he spoke. After we finished speaking and came down from the stage Rabbi Codeman came towards me and embraced me showing appreciation for what I spoke. I also warmly reciprocated his sentiments and we decided to exchange views through e-mail and be in touch with each other.

I said, in my presentation that in the world as it is today more and more people are feeling miserable and they cannot feel happy. In fact there are two stages as rightly put by the theme being promoted by Bhutan i.e. well being and happiness. And a person’s well being requires that his/her all basic needs like food, housing, clothes, health and education are taken care of. If these needs are not fulfilled how can a person be expected to be happy? It is sin qua non for happiness.

A hungry or naked or a person without any shelter cannot be expected to be happy though being rich is no guarantee of happiness. But one whose basic needs are not met cannot achieve well being and without well being one cannot be happy. Ones well being depends on material needs while happiness itself is not material in nature. A very rich person can also be unhappy

And our world as it is today millions are hungry and whose basic needs remain unfulfilled. Disparity of income is huge and this disparity is huge within United States itself. Today we are witnessing ‘we are 99%’ movement only one percent of Americans have monopolized all the financial resources of America while 99% are dependent on them. This disparity becomes much more when it comes to the people of Asia and Africa As there is great disparity between these 99% people of America and people of Asia and Africa.

Thus if we really want happiness in the world we must first enter the first stage i.e. well being of people and this is possible only if there is just distribution of material resources. Speaking from Islamic point of view Qur’an, the holy scripture of Islam strongly condemns an accumulation of wealth. It says in one of the early chapters revealed in Mecca that this wealth accumulated with few persons will turn into hell fire. Qur’an also says addressing the Prophet that people ask thee how much should we spend (in the way of Allah), tell them all that is surplus i.e. after meeting your basic needs.

And Islam advocates simple way of life and the Holy Prophet himself led extremely simple style of life and it is duty of Muslims to emulate his way of life. Yet, in Muslim world too, we see great deal of disparity of income and from Algeria to Indonesia we see so much poverty and backwardness among Muslims. Some Muslims including monarchs, sheikhs, feudals and capitalists lead life of ultra luxury while millions of Muslims starve. How can there be happiness in Muslims world?

Well being and happiness are integrated together and we must create a different world where there is well being of one and all and then alone we will be able to create a happy world though for happiness well being is only necessary but not sufficient factor. I also congratulated Prime Minister of Bhutan for convening this meeting to discuss such an important issue. There cannot be better forum than this. This presentation was greatly appreciated and many people including the panelists congratulated me.

I was also requested, along with other religious leaders to say prayer and I in my prayer invoked the first chapter of Qur’an (al-Fatihah) with my interpretation that all praise be to Allah who is Compassionate and Merciful and who is Perfactor of this universe created by him (whereas we are out to destroy it through reckless use of its resources). O Allah you judge us on the Day of Judgment whether we used its precious resources justly or not. O Allah show us the Right Path, the path of those on whom You have showered Your bounties (in the form of rich resources of our planet), and not of those who destroy these bounties and face Your wrath.

The meeting came to an end with all-religion prayers.    

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