Asian Social Science; Vol. 12, No. 7; 2016 ISSN 1911-2017 E-ISSN 1911-2025 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 66 Social Interaction: A Study on the Openness Attitude of Both Religion Believers towards the Other Believers in the Southern Thailand Jaffary Awang 1 , Mutsalim Khareng 1 , Zaizul Ab. Rahman 1 , Rohanee Machae 2 & Khaidzir Ismail 3 1 Department of Theology and Philosophy, National University of Malaysia, Malaysia 2 Department of Shariah, National University of Malaysia, Malaysia 3 Department of Psychology and Human Development Studies, National University of Malaysia, Malaysia Correspondence: Mutsalim Khareng, Department of Theology and Philosophy, Faculty of Islamic Studies, National University of Malaysia, Bangi 43650 Selangor Darul Eh-san, Malaysia. Tel: 012-267-8209. E-mail: habba_yabnee@hotmail.com Received: October 25, 2015 Accepted: January 26, 2016 Online Published: June 21, 2016 doi:10.5539/ass.v12n7p66 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ass.v12n7p66 Abstract The Southern of Thailand citizens are known as the plural society that possesses various different religions. Even though the citizens are from multi-religious society, the majority of them are Muslims and followed by the Buddhists. It is a continuous issue for the religious believers in the Southern of Thailand in communicating with the other religious believers. Their interaction process is always accompanied by the suspicion and doubt among each other. Among the concepts of harmonious living in a religious pluralism society, openness attitude is the most important basic concept. It plays the significant role as a tool to form a good relationship among people. Therefore, this study is meant to scrutinize to which extent the religious teaching that teaches on the religious harmonious of life influence its believers in interpreting it to an openness attitude in their daily interaction. This study utilised two main methods namely the qualitative and the quantitative approaches. The results from the descriptive analysis depict that most of religious believers in the Southern of Thailand possess the openness attitude in interacting with the other believers at a good level as 40.02% of them agreed, and 30.96% of them strongly agreed on the issue. Hence, the findings have convinced the study that majority of the citizens in the Southern of Thailand are highly motivated to live harmoniously. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that there are some of the religious believers failed to practice the openness attitude when interacting with the other believers, so it is a must to identify the causes in order to offer the best solution for it. Keywords: harmonious, interaction, openness attitude, plural society 1. Introduction Presently, the religious believers are facing the new challenge which is the conflict among the other religious believers in the pluralism society. It is a strong phenomenon that cannot be avoided as it is the sunnatullah or the law of nature determined by Allah (S.W.T). The pluralism society can summon people towards a good cooperation and openness attitude as mentioned in Surah Al-Baqarah verse 213 which focuses on issue of the believers’ unity under one God, the specific religion brought by the Prophets and the role of wahyu in comforting the various religious believers (al-Sha c rawi, 1991). The declaration of religious pluralism by Islam has proved that Islam acknowledges the nobility of human being by treating all human equally. The human differences cannot be avoided as they are the sunnatullah or the law of nature. In the other words, human are naturally created by Allah (S.W.T) in various shapes, races, tribes and cultures (Al-Kabaysi, 2012). However, the differences are not basically created to invite fight among human being (Muslim, 2011), as the creation is meant to teach human being in acknowledging the pluralism society and supporting the good relationship among them. This is important in forming the cooperative, kind hearted, respected, loving, and united society to complement each other and avoiding conflicts (Osman, 1997). There are few concepts that support the forming of the harmonious life among the believers in the pluralism society are respect, (al-Karamah al-Insaniyyah), fairness (al- c Adalah), equality (al-Musawah), tolerance (al-Tasamuh) and other good values ( c Uthman, 1968). The basic concept of forming the harmonious living of religious believers is the openness attitude. It is a principle that prioritizes the accommodation instead of conflict as each religion has its own truth to be raised, even though the real society has been proven to be heterogenic culturally and religiously. Hence, the openness attitude is the