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Office of InterFaith Activities
Baha’u’llah exhorted his followers to “… consort with the followers of all religions in a spirit of friendliness and fellowship”. “Religious fanaticism and hatred,” Baha’u’llah warned over a century ago, “are a worlddevouring fire, whose violence none can quench.”
Baha'is in the IRO
In Singapore, the Baha’is actively promote inter-faith understanding, dialogue and interaction. From 1995 to 1997 the Singapore Baha’i community organised World Religion Day observances that attracted audiences of over 1000 who heard eminent religious personalities address common denominators from the perspective of thir own religions. These obsevances served to fill an important niche in Singapore’s multi-religious society for greater awareness of each other’s sacred faiths. In 1998 the Inter Religious Organisation of Singapore agreed to be responsible for organising the annual observance of World Religion Day from that year onwards. The Baha’i Office of the Environment also regularly organises inter-faith commemoration of Earth Day for the Singapore public at large.
In Baha’i children’s classes, students are taught the basic history and teachings of other religions so as to engender a spirit of respect and understanding of other religions.
IRO Commemorative Stamps
Mr. Fozdar later served as Chairman of the IRO's Committee
for the Commemorative Postage Stamp to mark the IRO's
50th Anniversary in 1999 and, with Committee members
Mr. V.R. Nathan (Chairman of the Hindu Endowments Board)
and Brother Joseph McNally (Former President of LaSalle-SIA
College of Arts), was successful in having the Singapore Post
to issue on 15th January 1999 the IRO Commemorative stamp
in three denominations listing on it in chronological order the
names of its nine constituent religions: Hindu, Jewish,
Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Taoist, Christian, Muslim, Sikh and Bahá'í.
Above all, we expressed our conviction that the time has come when religious leadership must face honestly and without further evasion the implications of the truth that God is one and that, beyond all diversity of cultural expression and human interpretation, religion is likewise one. It was intimations of this truth that originally inspired the interfaith movement and that have sustained it through the vicissitudes of the past one hundred years. Far from challenging the validity of any of the great revealed faiths, the principle has the capacity to ensure their continuing relevance. In order to exert its influence, however, recognition of this reality must operate at the heart of religious discourse, and the Universal House of Justice, the supreme governing body of the Bahá'í Faith, felt that it needed to be explicitly articulated in the open letter.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE INTER-RELIGIOUS ORGANISATION OF SINGAPORE
The Inter-Religious Organisation of Singapore [“the IRO”, as it is commonly known] is a society composed of religious leaders and lay persons who work together to promote inter religious understanding, peace and goodwill in our nation.
The IRO had its beginnings in the founding of the Inter Religious Organisation of Singapore and Johor Bahru in 1949. The initiating force behind the formation of the organisation was His Eminence Maulana Shah Muhammad Abdul Aleem Siddiqui Al Qadiri, a renowned itinerant Muslim missionary from India who commanded the loving respect of the peoples of different faiths in the then Crown Colony of Singapore. During the Maulana’s visit to Singapore in early 1949 a reception in his honour was held at the home of Mr SIO Alsagoff. Present at the reception held on January 15, 1949 were the Rt. Hon Malcolm MacDonald [the then British Commissioner General for South East Asia] and Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh religious leaders.
At this reception the idea for a fellowship of leaders of the various religions was mooted. It was agreed that the idea was worth exploring and at a subsequent meeting it was agreed that the religious leaders will form an inter-religious organisation. At a later date the Maulana would explain that“the task of the religious leaders was to let the followers of each and every religion know the teachings of other religions, so that a spirit of fellowship might be created among them and so that they could all work together to spread the accepted moral principles and to fight the common evils”. Continued....
