Interfaith Dialogue in an Age of Religious Polarization: A Peacebuilding Model for Global Religious Communities

Abstract

Religious polarization has become one of the most urgent moral and public challenges of the twenty-first century. It appears in sectarian violence, religious nationalism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, online hate, migrant suspicion, minority insecurity, and the erosion of trust among faith communities. This article develops a peacebuilding model for global religious communities by arguing that interfaith dialogue should move beyond occasional meetings, symbolic tolerance, and ceremonial harmony toward a disciplined framework of theological honesty, ethical recognition, public responsibility, and shared civic action. The study combines scriptural reasoning, comparative theology, social ethics, conflict transformation, and contemporary interfaith scholarship. It draws on Islamic, Jewish, Christian, and broader religious resources while giving special attention to the Abrahamic traditions, because their shared moral grammar of divine accountability, human dignity, covenant, mercy, justice, and neighborly responsibility offers a strong foundation for peacebuilding. The article follows the academic pattern of a recently published comparative religious article by integrating a theoretical framework, literature review, applied model, recommendations, and full references. It engages works by Ataur Rehman, Hafiz Faiz Rasool, Abbas Ali Raza, Salman Arif, and other scholars who have written on interfaith harmony, social unity, Islamophobia, charity across faiths, religious obligations, minority rights, compassion, tolerance, artificial intelligence, and public ethics. The central contribution of the article is the Interfaith Peacebuilding and Social Cohesion Model, which consists of six layers: theological integrity, moral recognition, healing memory, institutional cooperation, public-good action, and digital responsibility. The article concludes that interfaith dialogue becomes a genuine peacebuilding force only when religious communities preserve their own convictions while transforming difference into responsibility, disagreement into ethical discipline, and shared vulnerability into cooperative service for the common good.