This is a commonly asked question these days. Yesterday I happened to meet a non-Muslim scholar who was a well-read and widely traveled person. During the conversation, he said that he had studied Al-Quran no less than six times and he had found it to be a book of peace in the complete sense of the word. He elaborated this by saying that Quran always insisted on human duties and not on human rights. He observed that only a duty-conscious society can live peacefully. A right-conscious society is an irritated society and irritated people can easily succumb to violence.

However, he mentioned that he had met many Muslims, both in India and abroad and had found that they lived in a Reactive Psychology. This made him wonder about the contradiction that existed between Muslims and their sacred Book, but he failed to find an explanation to this strange phenomena.

I told him that the answer to this question is very simple and can be explained by the Principle of Differentiation. According to this Principle, we must differentiate between Islam and Muslims. The Muslim community must be judged in the light of Quranic teachings and not vice-versa. Quran itself explains this by a verse that states that in the later period of their history, Muslims will treat the Quran as an abandoned Book (25:30). This prediction has come to be true today. Present-day Muslims believe in the Quran in a formal sense but they do not follow the teachings of Islam in their practical lives.

An analytical survey is required to explain the phenomena stated above. People tend to live in their history. Differently put, the history of a community is always in the vivid memory of its people. However, the history of no community is ideal, it is full of odds. Since man has been given freedom, he would misuse it and therefore, every history would naturally consist of some bad or unpleasant events along with some good events. It can therefore be said that history is a record of both kinds of events – good and bad. And, these events need to be sorted out. A positive interpretation of history is required to make people live with positive thinking. Otherwise the community is bound to live in negativity. But Muslims failed to do this job. It is this failure of their opinion maker class that has led all the present-day Muslims into negativity. The Muslims of today are paying the price of the failure of their own leaders to give a positive interpretation of their history. There is no one else to blame for their situation.

Quranic Principle

The Quran explains a principle pertaining to the rise and fall of nations in the following words:

“ If you have suffered a wound, they too have suffered a similar wound. We bring these days to men by turn.” (3:140)

The above verse was revealed after the Battle of Uhud (625 A.D.). Muslims suffered a defeat in this battle and were consequently in deep sorrow. The above verse of the Quran pacified the negativity of the Muslims by reminding them of the Battle of Badr (624 A.D) in which the Muslims had defeated the other party. Hence, the Quran used the principle of equalisation to normalise the Muslims after the defeat, which they met at the Battle of Uhud.

This was the Principle of Equalization. Applying this principle in life is very important as it is the only formula that allows men to think positively despite a negative situation. It helps in normalizing the minds of those who have suffered defeat. This approach allows them to assess their strategy on more realistic grounds and effectively re-plan their course of action, as we all know that a normal mind is capable of undertaking effective planning, whereas a negative mind disables sound thinking.

Hence, God pacified the Muslims so that they could rethink and plan effectively their future course of action. In this way, after the defeat, the Prophet of Islam started negotiations with the other party. Known in the Islamic history as the Hudaybiyyah agreement, it was a ten-year no-war pact, meant for peaceful coexistence. The Prophet accepted the conditions of the other party unilaterally for the implementation of this pact. He did so because, in his eyes, peace was supreme and everything else was secondary. The result of this peace treaty was miraculous; it led to a revolution as a result of which the Prophet and his companions outnumbered the hostile people within two years. This majority was enough for the Muslims to establish their domination over that region. This was the result of the application of the Principle of Equalization. The Quran called the Hudaybiyyah agreement an “open victory” even before its implementation (48:1). And the same happened not due to any mysterious reasons but because this Treaty was a result of realistic thinking on the part of the Muslims and therefore it led them to success.

Unfortunately the present-day Muslims have completely forgotten about this policy. God had set a great precedent of the success of the Principle of Equalization in the above example of Prophet. But Muslims did not pay heed to it. An example of the application of this Principle is also found in the secular world – it is Japan. At the end of Second World War, America dropped atom bombs on the Japanese industrial cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These bombings completely destroyed these cities. This incident filled the Japanese – people famous for introducing suicide bombing – with anger and sparked the emotion of revenge against the Americans.

But the intellectuals of Japan played a very constructive role at that time. They started a huge media campaign that was based on the Principle of Equalization. They said that if they had destroyed our cities in 1945, we too had destroyed their military base in Pearl Harbour in 1941. Hence the Japanese intellectuals told their people that the matter had been equalised and the Japanese people need not become negative or angry any more. As a result of this thinking aroused by their intellectuals, Japanese got a positive line of action and they did re-planning. They planned to extensively impart scientific education to their generations for the next thirty years. And by the end of these thirty years, Japan emerged as an economic superpower of the world.

Muslims should have learnt from this example of Japan that the formula adopted by the Prophet of Islam in the 7^th century remains very much applicable in the 20^th century – the modern age. This should have served as an eye-opener for Muslims and they should have re-applied the formula, which the Prophet applied 1400 years back. However, there is not even a single Muslim who did so.

Why did this happen?

After the Renaissance, the European nations emerged with a new scientific revolution. Hence the Europeans got new power by being able to utilise the mechanical power of matter and convert it into machines. This new power developed the Europeans greatly and they went onto become instrumental in bringing an end to the Muslim rule in various parts of the world example, the Ottoman Empire centralized in Turkey and spread all over the Middle East, part of Europe and Africa as well as the entire the Mughal Rule in the Indian subcontinent. The Muslims became very negative because of losing their empire to the colonial powers. The Muslims attributed it to conspiracy and atrocity of the westerners.

In reaction to this event, Muslim leaders, starting from Jamaluddin Afghani till the leaders of today, started propagating their negative ideas first through the printing press. But, when their literary campaign failed, they took to protests. When even their protests proved futile, they started a violent campaign in the name of jihad which continued well into the 20^th century. Now when this violence has given no result, they have started resorting to suicide bombing. The suicide bombing by Muslims in America on 9/11 and in Mumbai on 26^th November 2008 are examples. 

The history of this campaign dates backs to 200 years when in 1799 Tipu Sultan fought and died. He justified the sacrifice of his life by saying: “to live a life of a lion for one day is better that living the life of a jackal for hundred days.” This mentality is completely against the ideology of the Prophet of Islam. Had this been his mentality, he would have fought with the hostile people in Mecca and sacrificed his life. Rather, the Prophet migrated to Medina.

Since the past 200 years Muslims have been fighting and living in negative thought. There is no difference between hate and violence. Hate is passive violence and violence is active hate. Hence violence and hate fall in the same category. The whole Muslim world lives in hate because of the failure of their leaders and opinion makers to adopt the formula which the Prophet applied after Battle of Uhud and Japan applied after WWII.

The Muslim leaders should have explained to the Muslims that if in the 20^th century colonial empires have brought an end to the Muslim empires – Ottoman Empire and Mughal Empire - then the Muslims too brought an end to the Roman and the Byzantine empires in the 7^th century. Hence the issue has been equalised. This thought would have normalised the Muslims and would have prevented futile loss of lives in the endless feuds in which they are till date engaged all around the world.

Japanese understood that the reason behind American supremacy was their scientific and technological prowess. Only because of retaining their normalcy could the Japanese understand this reason. Muslims should have also realised that modern education is essential to stand in the present world. They should have concentrated on educating their generations on science and should have come out of negativity and hatred. In this way Muslims would have been able to avail opportunities in education, development and missionary work along with pursuing scientific education. But instead Muslims today indulge in claiming that they are being conspired against, but in reality they are paying the price of their incompetent leaders.

The mission of CPS is on one hand to spread the message of God to all mankind and on the other hand it is to tell the Muslims about the Principle of Equalization to normalise their minds and get them out of negative thinking into positive thinking. Only then will they be able to do effective planning and be able to do work in the positive field of education, development, dawah work, etc. When one sees the other person as his enemy then he will be unable to do dawah work, as dawah work requires well wishing in the hearts of the addresser for the addressee.

In a nutshell, to be able to think objectively, it is very important to get the right starting point. For instance, a man wrote a book with the title: “Islam, the most misunderstood religion,” the correct title should have been: “Islam, the most misrepresented religion.” In the same way an Arab published a book titled, “Why Muslims are backward and others are forward,” the title should been “why in spite of all their struggles, Muslims are backward.”

I hope that God may grant us the lead to the right starting point, as mere discovery of the right starting point is equivalent to winning half the battle.

May God accept our efforts.