Part of the reason I've been on an elephant kick lately is that the fable is one of the better ways to make sense of religious diversity. It is humble and modest. Many other approaches to religious difference end up coming from a place of arrogance or presumption. I mean, in order to have a grand unified vision of all religions you are almost necessarily claiming to be able to judge the merits of vast traditions and spiritual systems from a place of authority and knowledge. A very top-down vision. And sure, maybe there are certain scholar-saints with the comprehensive knowledge to pull it off, but they'd have to be few and far between in human history. Everyone else is going to have non-trivial limitations and "blind spots".
A more modest ground-up approach makes more sense to me. I'm not a Perennialist who claims to know the Sophia Perennis. I'm just a Muslim with a charitable view of other religions. So I'm tentatively open to the idea that Buddha, Zoroaster, Aesop, Akhenaton, Lao Tzu and others were prophets and that the Book of Coming Forth By Day, Mandaean scriptures, the Gathas, the I Ching and other writings contain prophetic guidance (or at the very least, some good advice).
I'm not trying to advocate for a syncretic approach. We should only follow one shariah, not mix-and-match among different rituals and commandments.
But at the same time, we should be willing to learn from various sources.
Abu Huraira reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “The word of wisdom is the lost property of the believer. Wherever he finds it, he is most deserving of it.”
(Sunan al-Tirmidhī 2687)
A more modest ground-up approach makes more sense to me. I'm not a Perennialist who claims to know the Sophia Perennis. I'm just a Muslim with a charitable view of other religions. So I'm tentatively open to the idea that Buddha, Zoroaster, Aesop, Akhenaton, Lao Tzu and others were prophets and that the Book of Coming Forth By Day, Mandaean scriptures, the Gathas, the I Ching and other writings contain prophetic guidance (or at the very least, some good advice).
I'm not trying to advocate for a syncretic approach. We should only follow one shariah, not mix-and-match among different rituals and commandments.
But at the same time, we should be willing to learn from various sources.
Abu Huraira reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “The word of wisdom is the lost property of the believer. Wherever he finds it, he is most deserving of it.”
(Sunan al-Tirmidhī 2687)
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