In Taiwan, freedom of faith is for everyone. On this Pacific Island, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism sit alongside Christian and Muslim minorities and other traditions.
With this video the series “Taiwan, a Mosaic of Religions” continues.
In this fourth episode, “Islam in Taiwan”, we meet another minority religious community after the Catholics: the Muslim community.
Through the interview with Abdullah Cheng, imam of the Taipei Grand Mosque, we discover the rich intercultural variety of Taiwanese Islam: Indonesians, Taiwanese, Central Asians, as well as Muslims from Canada and the United States.
The imam emphasizes that in Taiwan the Muslim community can live its faith freely, both in daily prayer and in public celebrations. A telling example is the feast marking the end of Ramadan: on that occasion Muslims pray together in Taipei’s central park and then share the iftar – the meal that breaks the fast – with people of other faiths through open food stands.
Gestures like these convey a concrete experience of religious freedom and interreligious dialogue – the very theme we will explore in the next and final episode.
