Unity in Diversity: Religious leaders in Indonesia encouraging tolerance

World
Europe

02:47

When talking about connecting people and bridging differences. Religion has the capacity to play a massive role. To highlight its importance in Asia's diverse fabric, CGTN's Silkina Ahluwalia stepped inside Southeast Asia's largest mosque in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta and spoke to one of the country's prominent religious leaders who aims to create a more tolerant nation through Islam.

NASARUDDIN UMAR IMAM, ISTIQLAL MOSQUE "Why many people are interested to visit Istiqlal. Because it's one of the icons in Jakarta. The second one, it is a symbol of gender equality also. If you can find another mosque, especially in Middle east countries, women are separated so far from the men. Women at the back, men in the front. But here, women are on the right and men on the left."

SILKINA AHLUWALIA JAKARTA, INDONESIA "This mosque has been a symbol of tolerance for years in Indonesia. It's located just across the city's oldest Roman Catholic Cathedral. For many years, religious leaders have used both of these structures as an example that different religions can thrive and co-exist in one of the world's largest Muslim-majority nation."

NASARUDDIN UMAR IMAM, ISTIQLAL MOSQUE "Islam is a religion of humanity. For us humanity is number one, there is no color. According to the Quran, we have to respect other people without seeing which religion they have."

SILKINA AHLUWALIA JAKARTA, INDONESIA "How do you think Islam has changed over the years, if it has?"

NASARUDDIN UMAR IMAM, ISTIQLAL MOSQUE "One of the most important problems was how to invite another religion to come and work together in a human perspective and human activities. We can use the language, religious language to motivate our society to participate to build Indonesia with a modern perspective."