The Model of (Active) Tolerance in Islamic Neighborhood Relations

@ Ali Malakoutinia / PhD, University of Quran and Hadith                                                         alim2200@gmail.com

Tahereh Moeinfar / BA in Accounting from Payame Noor University. Level two student at Jami’at al-Zahra University  t.moein@mihanmail.ir

Received: 2020/05/09 - Accepted: 2020/09/06

Abstract

Islamic teachings consider "tolerance" as a way to deal with conflicts, contradictions and troubles in the neighborhood. In Islamic texts, this theme has been reflected through concepts such as "negligence", "tolerance of neighbor’s harassment", "lenience" and "benevolence against wrongdoings". Using the method of qualitative content analysis, this study concludes that the tolerance of neighbors in the Islamic model has hierarchical levels, i.e. the quality of interaction with "bad neighbors" has the form of a (hierarchical) continuum, starting linearly from the point of "lowest level" (tolerance of troubles and wrongdoings) and extending to the "highest level" (benevolence), and the middle level in this model is "tolerance", which includes such things as forgiveness of neighbor's sins and mistakes, forgiveness of neighbor's oppression, tolerance towards neighbor's ignorant behavior and refraining from harassing one’s neighbors. Tolerance in neighborhood relationships begins actively (away from passivity), with resistance against harsh conditions, continues with adaptation (reducing the effects of the confrontation) and eventually comes to an end by affecting the neighbor and improving the situation.

Keywords: living in apartments, neighborhood ethics, Islamic neighborhood relationships, (active) tolerance, neighborhood conflicts.