A Investigation into Various Approaches to Religious Tolerance

Due to globalized communication, today the coexistence of cultures and religions has become more significant as well as the efforts to diminish the violence. Coexistence of people apart from nationality and religion along with avoiding violence and war are among the basic requirements of today, s world. Therefore it is very important to review the relation between coexistence and religion specially Islam which is paid more attention due to the increasing power of Islamic political groups. Most of the classical theories in sociology of religion lay emphasis on the existence of a relation between religion and violence, a paradigm which has been doubted in recent decades due to newer researches. In this article different theories regarding religion, coexistence and pluralism are surveyed and criticized descriptively. At the end the ideal pattern of religious coexistence from an Islamic point of view or for Moslem communities is suggested