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Moral and Ethical Principles and Laws
 One condition for groups of people to
be able to live together in one society is that they share a
set of morals and values. The most basic set of moral and
ethical values in the Biblical tradition is the Ten
Commandments.
The Ten Commandments was part of the revelation taught by
Moses. Both Jews and Christians revere these laws, which
appear in both the Torah and the Old Testament. These
beliefs are an important reason why Muslims are taught to
respect Jews and Christians as fellow “People of the Book.”
The Qur’an includes all of the Ten Commandments -- many of
them stated in a similar way, with the exception of the
Sabbath (day of rest). The Qur’an also states that its
revelation came to confirm the message brought by earlier
prophets.
Much of this message is the central religious concept of One
God, and the basic commandments to honor parents, help the
poor, respect neighbors, and not steal, kill, envy, or lie.
Some of these commandments also form the basis of civil and
criminal law in secular governments. And they form the basis
for the concept of human rights.
Rules about food are another type of religious practice that
can affect how a religiously diverse group gets along. Jews
and Muslims
both
follow dietary laws about the types of meat they can eat, as
well as how animals used for meat are slaughtered and
prepared. Christians do not follow either the very detailed
Jewish laws about food, nor the Islamic laws that forbid
eating pork and drinking alcoholic beverages.
However, Jews, Christians, and Muslims do share food in
social settings and among members of religiously mixed
families.
The sharing of food serves as an important basis for social
life in a diverse society. Sharing food lends itself to the
sharing of ideas. And, shared values, beliefs, and ethics
make many kinds of interactions possible, from business
dealings to intermarriage. Examples of these kinds of
interactions existed in Medieval Spain, and continue today
in the mixed cities of Muslim lands, or in other large
cities of the world. Back to
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