I once chanced upon a group of Muslims at a place where a minor
communal riot had taken place, and found that they were heatedly proclaiming
that the Muslims had done nothing whatsoever to provoke the other community,
and that the latter had begun fighting for no apparent reason. I counseled
patience and asked them to tell me exactly how the fighting had started. It seems
that at the spot where the clash took place there is a mosque, with a mandir
located close by. When the loudspeaker on the mosque began the call to azan, devotees of the other community
began to ring the mandir bells, as it was also their time of worship. The
Muslims asked them to refrain from doing so, but they paid no heed. When the
Muslims repeated their request, they took exception to this and a riot broke
out.
Then I asked them where it was written in either the Shar’iah, the Qur’an or the Hadith that
no non-Muslim should ring the bells in his place of worship at the time of namaz.
Certainly none of our jurists have ever held this to be a law. In fact,
never on the entire period of Muslim rule did a Muslim ruler ever order that
bells should not be rung in a mandir or church at the time of prayer. This
being so, I asked them why they had become enraged. I did not agree that the
sound of bells disturbed their paryers. Unfortunately, those concerned did not
see the point of mu argument and just kept repeating whatever had already been
said on the subject. They were not ready to change their ways. I wished they
could have been like a friend of mine, who, at a crucial moment, suddenly saw
the necessity of a different approach. Customarily stern with his children, to
the point of driving them away from him, he entered his home one day to find
his young son clinging precariously to the top of a pole which he had managed
to clamber on to from an upper balcony. He was trying to detach a kite from
some wires when he looked down and saw his father standing there. The boy’s
eyes went blank with fear. The father, however, sensing immediately how
dangerous a rebuke would be, talked gently to his son, and persuaded him to
leave the kite and climb carefully back on to the balcony. Had he stormed and
shouted at him, the little boy might have lost his grip and had a terrible,
even fatal fall.
What is needed now is such a change of approach on the part of Muslims,
for their present confrontational ways are quite un-Islamic and they are
certainly not the ways shown to us by God and His Prophets. They are the ways
of the egoists and the lovers of power and prestige. They are such ways as will
forever prevent the spreading of the message of Islam, for how can da’wah work be effectively undertaken
when the prevailing atmosphere is one of hatred and suspicion?
Many riots in this country can be traced to a wrong-headed approach to
matters which could easily be settled be patient discussion. When a house goes
on fire, we put out the fire with water. No one in his right mind would try to
put it out with petrol. But that is exactly the kind of approach adopted by the
Muslims of today. He rushes at problems, does not try to find the proper
solution and adopts an approach which is bound to aggravate the situation
beyond all measure.
No comments:
Post a Comment