The Muslim Sunrise is the oldest Muslim publication of North America. Its winter volume explores unity and diversity in our global village: Winter-2016

Editorial for the winter volume

By Mubasher Ahmad, Chief Editor of the Muslim Sunrise

Each of the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, believe in humanity as one family, being children of Adam and Eve. Scientific theories may differ, but still humanity is considered to be a single species, closely related to certain non-human species. Nevertheless, it is incredible to see the diversity that exists among human races: their colors, cultures, languages and faith traditions. Since time immemorial, innumerable and significant efforts have been made to bring about unity and mutual understanding among human races, but sadly, it seems that mankind has a long way to go to achieve that goal.

A few years ago when I came to Houston, Texas, I was amazed to see the diversity of people living in the fourth largest city in the United States. More than 90 different languages are spoken here, and followers of all major world religions – Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, and many others, co-exist without discord or social or religious clashes. Houston is home to Caucasians, African Americans, South Asians, Hispanics, Latinos Africans, Native Americans, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japanese – all happily living together in peace. This magnificent spectrum of races, languages and religions living together in harmony offers great hope and encouragement towards the notion that the same can happen in other parts of the world. For this reason, the theme of this edition of the Muslim Sunrise is ‘Unity in Diversity’.

Several angles of this theme are considered in this issue, ranging from the paradox of ‘Unity in diversity’, whether or not global unity is a possibility, whether the United Nations has proved to be a success or failure, to a look into the ‘experiment’ on freedom of religion that became known as the ‘United States of America’ Several articles are included to explore and explain the Islamic perspective on this important theme, from Qur’anic teachings on it, to the condition of the Early Islamic Ummah, a deep contrast to causes of disunity among present day Muslims. Most importantly, we ask “How can Unity in Diversity be achieved through the Khilafat of Ahmadi Muslims, the True Islam?”

In keeping with the aforementioned concept of humanity as a unique species, , we include a very informative article in the ‘Religion and Science’ section on “The Biology of our Human Family: who are we related to?” According to a recent single-origin hypothesis, our ancestors originated in Africa some 60,000 years ago, and later, they spread all over the world.

We hope you will enjoy reading and reflecting on this important topic. Please feel free to give us your feedback; it will be much appreciated.

You can read the whole volume online: Winter-2016