RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DEVELOPMENT AND PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE AMONG MULTIRELIGIOUS AND MULTIRACIAL COMMUNITIES IN AN ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE -MALAYSIA AS A CASE STUDY

Abstract

Living in peace among people irrespective of their religious, cultural, and racial affiliations is the ideal aim of Islam as a message of peace for all humanity. Sharing life aspects peacefully among multi-religious and multiracial groups and communities is a kind of social integration, which has a high importance in spreading the message of peace and unity to all humankind in the society itself and in all over the world. The thing that might show positively in the development process of the society which succeeds in managing the life equation of diversity and integration that later leads people and different groups to live in peaceful coexistence. The purpose of this study is to illustrate how Islamic teachings are important, especially the terms of Tawhid, Al-Wasatiyyah, justice, and peace as an ideal slogan in managing human affairs by taking their religious and racial differences into account, to discover the relationship between peaceful coexistence and the process of development and to see to what extent they are linked to each other. This study argues that peaceful coexistence is a prerequisite for the continuation of the development process, by taking Malaysia`s case as a real example of the equation, the study also will propose a set of recommendations on how peaceful coexistence and cooperation are important, and to ensure unity and harmony among a various community of religions, races and cultures in all the multi-religious and multiracial countries.