The religious establishment and its role on confronting extremist ideas and hate speech

Abstract

The religious institution throughout history has had an important and effective role in confronting the challenges facing societies, especially Arab and Islamic societies alike, from destructive and extremist ideas. Moderate clerics, whether Muslims or non-Muslims, have often had a significant impact in correcting the paths of extremist and hate speech, especially since our world today is witnessing serious deviations in the field of social, religious and moral values and the resulting fanaticism and extremism in understanding religious issues, which has generated a major intellectual deviation that has caused the outbreak of wars. The strife and internal fighting were aided in this by the electronic development, which later resulted in a major challenge to the religious institution in how to address and correct the paths of the youth group, which is the group that is most accommodating to the absorption of ideas. Therefore, the religious institution began to define moderate religious discourse and the sound intellectual structure of society. Therefore, I tried with this study to shed light on a group of problems and questions, trying to answer them in the folds of the research, and perhaps the most important of them.

The research folds, perhaps the most important of which are:

1. What are the dimensions of the religious institution and the importance of its goals towards the individual?
2. How did the religious institution contribute to consolidating moderate values throughout history and to this day.
3. What are the most prominent efforts of the religious institution in confronting deviant ideas and hate speech at the present time.
4. The most prominent contemporary challenges that societies suffer from as a result of extremist ideas and hate speech?

 Perhaps it goes without saying that the religious institution and its discourse in general are of great importance because it is an important means of communication with societies. It is considered the most important factor in shaping the mental structure of individuals and one of the most basic influences on the human psyche. The discourse of the religious institution is still the only basic means available to guide individuals and change societies, and we have in our present time much evidence.