Dr. Islam addressing more than 300 Sikhs visitng from Punjub, India who came to visit historical Gurudwara Nanak Shahi in Bangladesh
For Dr. Kazi Nurul Islam, URI Global Council Trustee from Bangladesh, interfaith peacebuilding has been an inevitable part of his life’s path. Not only has he spent his life studying the world’s religions, he has also worked to build bridges among people of all faiths after making it his mission from a very young age.
It all began with the lasting bonds that his father, a Muslim, developed with a Hindu neighbor who treated him as her son. This inspired a commitment to learning that would lead him to the United States, where he would study Judaism as a Fullbright Senior Fellow. After two decades of study, he founded the Department of World Religions and Culture at Dhaka University in Bangladesh. More recently, Dr. Islam has been noted for his work in establishing the Sikh Research Center, the only one of its kind in the nation.
Today, Dr. Islam is a professor of World Religions and Culture and Director of the Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue of Dhaka University in Bangladesh. In addition to founding the Warm Heart Association, he has established several groundbreaking programs at Dhaka, among them the Dr. Mahanam Foundation for Peace and Solidarity, the Swami Swarupanda Foundation for Moral Education and Interreligious Harmony, and the Foundation for Dialogue Among the Members of the Family of Abraham. Dr. Islam has become an inspiration for his students, a formidable academic, and a guiding light for interfaith activists around the world.
The driving force behind his work is a personal passion for peace and religious understanding that can be traced back to his childhood. As a young boy, he was strongly influenced by the religious tolerance shown by his Muslim family.
“My father lost his mother when he was only 10 days old,” Dr. Islam says. “He received the mother’s love and affection from a Hindu lady—a friend of the family, and as a result, he was emotionally attached to her. Her children and my father behaved as if they were children of the same mother.”
As a young boy, Dr. Islam asked his father what he should become. “He told me that he felt indebted to both the Muslim and the Hindu communities and he expressed his desire for me to devote my life to remove all ill will they feel towards one another and to promote a Hindu-Muslim amity. It was indeed a covenant between father and son. My interfaith journey began from that time.”
Dr. Islam has not only worked to fulfill his father’s dreams, as his life’s work can attest, but he has moved beyond Hindu-Muslim relations, inspired by a love of many other religions as well. In 1975, he was awarded the Government of India Research Fellowship to study in India, the birthplace of so many religions he had hoped to learn about. It was at Banaras Hindu University that he was introduced to Sikhism.
“I was very excited to learn the teachings of Guru Grantha Sahib, the most sacred text of the Sikhs. Indeed, in this text I discovered the interfaith teaching I was looking for,” Dr. Islam says. “Guru Grantha Sahib is unique in that it contains holy text not only about the Sikh gurus, but also about Hindu saints and Muslim Sufis. The Golden Temple (Harmandir) enjoys a special status among the Sikhs. But it is surprising to note that Mia Mir, a Muslim saint, laid the foundation stones of the temple. No religion on Earth can claim to have shown this kind of respect towards a man of another tradition.”
After years of studying the world’s religions in the US, India, and Japan, Dr. Islam returned to Dhaka University with a newfound mission: to establish a center for interreligious dialogue and a Sikh Research Center. Dr. Islam recognized the need for the people of Bangladesh to know more about Sikhism in particular because of its universal values and messages of tolerance.
“I am a Muslim,” he says. “But above all, I am a student of world religions and spent four decades learning different religions. That is why I want to promote the teachings of Sikhism—to make my students peace-loving, enlightened citizens of the world.”
Dr. Islam’s passion and love for Sikhism is infectious. Tahrima Binta Naim Mou, one of Dr. Islam’s World Religions and Culture students, says of the Sikh Research Center:
“Like most Bangladeshis, I had no idea about Sikhism since there are no Sikh people in our country. We are really grateful to our professor, Dr. Kazi Nurul Islam, for teaching us the core of Sikhism. I really feel that, in today’s world where violence and inequality grasp at our minds and thoughts, the message of Guru Nanak [founder of Sikhism] can show a new vista to spread humanity and interreligious harmony throughout the world."
Mosleh Uddin, another student of World Religions and Culture who has come to learn about Sikhism through the guidance of Dr. Islam, said, “I am in love with the Sikh philosophy, as it does not contradict my Islamic religious values or any other values. I could not have learned about the great beauty and truth of a religion like Sikhism if I had not had the guidance of Professor Islam and the Sikh Research Center.”
To Dr. Islam, the principles of Sikhism are a powerful force in interfaith peacebuiliding. “Sikhism as a religion is based on the principle of fearlessness, mutual love, coexistence, shared humanity, and oneness of all human beings, irrespective of their caste, color, or creed,” he says. “There is no room for hatred in this religion.”
Dr. Kazi Nurul Islam is a living embodiment of this set of beliefs. As he continues his journey in educating students in Bangladesh about Sikhism, he works not only as a teacher of the world’s religions, but as a student, inspiring a student’s sense of joy and wonder about the world’s religions in others.
