Religious Pluralism: The Perspective of Twentieth Century Muslim Perennial Philosopher Frithjof Schuon

Abstract

Religious Pluralism has become an important area of philosophy of religion because of increasing diversity of religions which causes increasing religious conflicts in present-day world. There are diverse thoughts which address the common goals of Religious Pluralism; however in western societies Perennialist scholars are most influential in advocating religious diversity and in bringing reaffirmation of Perennial wisdom. The paper first uncovers the rediscovery of Perennial philosophy in twentieth century while disseminating the belief in universal truth. The paper also focuses on the perspective of Muslim traditionalist intellectual Frithjof Schoun one of the founder of Perennial philosophy for the implication of Religious pluralism in the Globalized world involves not only Abrahamic religions but Buddhism and Hinduism by presenting the idea of Transcendent unity of religions. This is concluded that as a representative of traditional school of thought Frithjof Schuon proposed a unique perspective of religious pluralism based on the indispensable notion of religious diversity, esoterism and exoterism in identifying transcendent unity of religions as the substantiate essence of religious pluralism.