'We need to protect our religion from ignorance'

President of the Muslim College Dr Zahi Badawi and Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg drew a packed house for a debate on secularism at the North London Synagogue in East End Road, Finchley, on Wednesday last week.

They had different opinions of the importance of secularism in society with Dr Badawi saying religion had been corrupted by fundamentalists, misinterpreted by society and broken down by secularism.

"People conceive of religion as divisive so rules have been imposed from above through which everyone has the same dues," said Dr Badawi. "The problems arise from fundamentalists this is what gives religion a bad name. Fundamentalism is a disease. We need to train our religious people properly.

"We need to protect our religion from ignorance and from those who try to own it and then misrepresent it. It is easy to preach hatred because you do not have to think.

"We need to inform society to show our ideas are in no way harmful."

Rabbi Wittenberg suggested religions should find common ground to combat fundamentalism. He said that in a revival of religion they should draw lessons from secular values, such as equality, and combine them with the responsibility of religion to avoid ignorant loyalty.

He said: "We have a sense we are on different paths of the same mountain. We cannot claim God because he is greater than any of us. I would like to see this common religion reassert itself."