Do you believe that we have a lot of prejudices against other religions? I think our perception of this is changing in general for the better day by day.

One of the best ways to understand ourselves and discover new things is by interacting with people who neither speak our language nor understand our culture and it is fun to expand and grow, noting the beauty and the contrast of the environment to identify new things we need and want.

Thus, we need to find a common ground with people around us, regardless of their race, gender, and culture. The equation is so simple, it only needs some understanding and sometimes empathy, or putting ourselves in place of others to see things from different angles.

We can also let go of everything said by others and to give ourselves time to begin to try hearing the story of others from your own experience with them. You are worthy of being a source for stories! We need to fundamentally change how our culture perceives other religions.

Therefore, it’s very important here to highlight the great role made by Etidal, a Saudi organization that seeks to expose, combat and refute extremist ideology and emphasize the importance of achieving world peace and the remarkable efforts made by the Intellectual Warfare Center with the Saudi Ministry of Defense. IWC aims to confront the roots of extremism and promote the true understanding of Islam.

Islam is a religion based on simply loving and welcoming each other. We learned from our holy book that gender, class, race, and physical traits make life different, but they don’t make us unequal. Unfortunately, we do that to each other, I laughed so many times when I read/listen others’ impression on this subject as they are turning them into cautionary tales, and I prefer to not argue with that at all because they seem to be completely forgetting that main mission of our religion that is to accept and welcome others.

I believe that pointing out differences will only serve individuals but not deliver peace to this world, we need the best of everyone, the people we know and the people we don’t know, and always remember the fastest and the most effective way to influence is kindness as it was the secret key of our Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

Honestly, I can see our focus has shifted from individuality to community, which means the new generation is going forward and it will be more open. I truly believe that everyone should be an agent of change in this world.

— The writer can be reached at @moionlynoor