As I understand it, Hari Raya is a great festival for Muslims - from Saudi Arabia to China, indeed, the whole world - to celebrate a spiritual renewal.

It is one of the great festivals in Malaysia, like Christmas, Chinese New Year, Deepavali, Wesak Day and others, that serve to remind us of the universal nature of our moral and spiritual values which form the foundation of civilised societies, and the antithesis to the many narrow, parochial hate-mongering, ethnic chauvinism and nationalism which, as my Muslim friends taught me, is called Assabiyah in Islamic teachings.

Although often misunderstood and wrongly stereotyped, Islam is a great religion for many Malaysians and people of all ethnic origins throughout the world. Many Western historians, like Malvin Perry in his magnum opus "A History of Western Civilisation", have now acknowledged the contribution of Islamic thinking, culture and science to the revitalisation of Western civilisation.

The millennium edition of the Economist also carried a highly inspiring article on Europe and Islam, pointing out the historical fact that under the reign of the Muslim rulers in Spain for 781 years, the country had developed not only scientifically and culturally, but also a model of society where "Muslims, Christians and even Jews co-existed in peace".

Indeed, while the history of hostilities between Islam and other religions cannot be denied, there has been many more examples of cooperation, mutual respect and mutual appreciation. For example, it has been already firmly established in Western history that it was mainly Muslims who preserved the classics of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle - in Al Andalus (Spain under the reign of Muslims) and Alexandria - during the European Middle Ages where respect for learning and intellectual activities was at its lowest ebb as results wars and economic, social and political turmoil due to the fall of the eastern Roman Empire.

It was also the Muslims who brought back those classics to Europe in the Middle Ages, to enable Europeans themselves to spark off the renaissance that marks the beginning of modernity.

In the East, Muslims entered into contacts with Chinese and Indian culture, providing inspirations for progress and reform, positive change and adjustment.

For example, the first Muslims who went to China during the Tang Dynasty had built a strong Hui-hui community and culture there, producing great Chinese Muslim poets, judges, court administrators, military commanders, translators and even Confucian scholars. In fact, according to nationalist leader Dr.Sun Yat Sen, who was himself a Christian, the concept of Chinese or Chonghua was constituted by five elements, namely Han, Manchurian, Mongolian, Hui (Islamic) and Tibetan.

To be sure, other elements were added later, but it does not alter the fact that Chinese or Chonghua is not a monoethnic or monoreligious concept as understood by many - and intentionally propagated by some - but a multiethnic and multireligiuos concept.

In short, Islam had acted as a great bridge between the East and the West in ancient times. And it is this remarkable aspect of Islam that should serve as a basis of civilisational dialogue which will provide a common platform for the struggle of justice and reformasi in Malaysia's multiethnic and multireligious society in the years ahead.

JAMES WONG WING ON is a former DAP MP and a columnist in Chinese newspaper Sin Chew Jit Poh.