The Case of Present-Day Muslims

It is said that Muslims all over the world are engaged in violence. Some Muslims are engaged in passive violence while others are engaged in active violence. Just thinking in extremist terms may be described as passive violence, while adopting the gun culture may be described as active violence.

This phenomenon pertains to Muslim practices and has nothing whatsoever to do with Islamic teachings.

The fact is that, according to the Quran, Muslims are witnesses of God before mankind, or shuhada ʿala an-naas (2:143). It was the same duty as was given to the Jews. As the Bible says:

‘Therefore you are my witnesses, said the Lord.’¹

In Chapter 3 of the Quran this fact is set forth in these words:

‘God made a covenant with those who were given the Book to make it known to people and not conceal it. But they cast it behind their backs and bartered it for a paltry price.’ (3:187)

The Jews were the People of the Book, but in the later period of their history they completely forgot their duty and discarded the concept of being witnesses. They replaced it with the concept of Jewish supremacism. Exactly the same has happened with the Muslims. They now think in terms of Muslim supremacism.

The Muslim thought that developed in the later period of Muslim history all stemmed from this notion of Muslim supremacism. It can be summed up as: Nahnu khulafa Allah fil arz (We are the vicegerents of God on earth).

Muslim literature of later days, directly or indirectly, projects this concept in a major way. And it is a concept which has been revived in modern times with even greater emphasis by two Muslim thinkers, the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb (1906 – 1966) in the Arab world and the Pakistani Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi (1903 – 1979) in the non-Arab world. It is this concept, popularized in the present century, which has ultimately led to terrorism in the name of jihad.

The present-day Muslim militants have adopted a self-styled concept of jihad, that is, to establish divine rule in the world, and have chosen to give their militancy religious justification by calling it jihad.

‘Jihad’ literally means ‘utmost struggle’. The true interpretation of this word is ‘a peaceful struggle for the dissemination of the message of God to mankind’.

The present-day Muslim militants have adopted a self-styled concept of jihad, that is, to establish divine rule in the world, and have chosen to give their militancy religious justification by calling it jihad. This is why the present Muslim militancy has gained so much ground. In other words, its proponents look upon it and project it as ‘justified’ militancy, or militancy based on ideology. To discharge this ‘duty’ they have – by their way of it – given legitimacy to all forms of violence, even suicide bombing.

Now the question is: how to tackle this militancy? The answer is that it requires a counter-ideology. The militants have purportedly legitimized their militancy by applying to it a wrong and misleading interpretation of the religious scriptures. We have to delegitimize it by replacing the wrong interpretation with the right interpretation. No other strategy will work.

Man is a rational animal. He always accepts things when his mind is properly addressed, and Muslim militants should certainly be no exception to this rule.

Here, I would like to narrate a very relevant story. Once on a visit to Palestine, I found some Arab boys singing a song in unison. One line of this was:

Halumma nuqatil halumma nuqatil fa inna al-qitala sabil ar-rashadi

(Let us make war, let us make war, for war is the way to success!)

I told them that it would be better if they sang like this:

Halumma nusalim halumma nusalim fa inna as-salama sabil ar-rashadi

(Let us make peace, let us make peace, for peace is the way to success!)

The Arab boys appreciated my suggestion and showed their readiness to fall in line with it. But then they said that they were surrounded by enemies. So, if they adopted peace, what would happen?

I explained to them: ‘You have wrongly considered others as your enemies. They are not your enemies, but your mad‘u, people to whom God’s message has to be conveyed. According to the Quran (85:3), Muslims are shahid (witness) and all human beings are mashhud (the witnessed). Our duty is to convey the message of God to all mankind.’ Then I pointed out to them that their violent method had not yielded any result, but that if they engaged in peaceful dawah, then God Almighty had promised all kinds of help for this work. As the Quran says:

‘God will surely help him who helps His cause—God is indeed powerful and mighty.’ (22:40)

The Arab boys were very pleased with what I had said and then one of them presented me with an olive branch from a nearby tree, as a token of peace. By taking into consideration human nature, it can be said that this experience is applicable to all the Muslims of the world.