Religious Diversity in Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi and John Hick

Religious pluralism has become one of the most contested issues in contemporary philosophy of religion and is generally discussed within the frameworks of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism. This article provides a comparative analysis of religious pluralism in the thought of Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi, one of the leading Sufi figures of Islamic intellectual tradition, and John Hick, a prominent representative of modern philosophy of religion. Mawlana’s understanding of religion is grounded in the metaphysics of waḥdat al-wujūd (the unity of being) and in the moral-metaphysical dimension of divine love. For him, the infinite self-disclosures of the Absolute Being constitute the ontological foundation of religious diversity. Accordingly, Mawlana develops an inclusive and pluralistic perspective in which every faith is regarded as a partial manifestation of divine truth. Although he was well-versed in theological and philosophical debates, Mawlana did not follow the methods of theologians or philosophers when addressing such issues. For him, engaging in excessively abstract reasoning was not a valid path to truth. His conceptions of life, humanity, and religion are shaped by the idea of being. The vastness of being corresponds to his understanding of life and religion, for both emerge from and continue within the essence of existence. To Mawlana, the realm of being is too vast to be grasped by the senses, and its source lies deeper than both the material world and the realms of imagination and sensation. Although Mawlana’s reflections on religious diversity can be analyzed through the contemporary paradigms of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism, it becomes clear that he transcends these frameworks through a more profound and holistic vision. The seemingly contradictory tendencies of exclusivity, inclusivity, and pluralism observed in Sufi discourse stem from the dialectic between the outer (ẓāhir) and inner (bāṭin) dimensions. Thus, the inclusive and pluralistic attitudes in Sufism are not mutually exclusive. Hick, on the other hand, constructs his pluralism on an epistemological basis, interpreting religious diversity as the plurality of human responses to the “Ultimate Reality” within the limits of human cognitive and cultural conditions. Drawing on Kant’s ontology and epistemology, Hick reinterprets the divine by postulating God as the “Ultimate Reality” at the center of his pluralistic framework. This distinction has generated major debates in theology and philosophy of religion, particularly concerning the possibility of revelation. According to Hick, there is a sharp distinction between Reality in itself and Reality as conceptualized and experienced through religious traditions—an indeterminacy that arises from metaphysical uncertainty. Each religion asserts absolute truth claims, yet these claims cannot be verified by any objective criterion. Therefore, no religious tradition can make a complete or final claim about the nature of Reality. The fundamental difference between the two approaches lies in their orientation: while Mawlana proposes a God-centered and religion-centered pluralism, Hick advocates an experience-centered one. The study concludes that Mawlana offers a more holistic framework that preserves the authenticity and socio-cultural dimensions of religion, whereas Hick’s model, though compatible with modern values such as liberalism and tolerance, risks undermining the essence of religion through its reductionist tendencies.