Chapter Nine

Anti-Islam in the Name of Islam announced that if any of the Makkan polytheists fell into the Muslims’ hands, the Muslims would not detain them, but, rather, would send them back to the Makkans. This indicates that even if their opponents took some Muslims as hostages, it was still not legitimate for Muslims to do the same by taking some of their opponents’ men as hostage. The Real Culprits Who, then, are really responsible for stirring up a storm of hatred and violence in the name of Islam today? The Muslim youths who are engaged in these hate-driven and violent acts cannot be responsible for this. Rather, the blame is upon the so-called ‘Islamic thinkers’, who, in the name of ‘Islamic Revolution’, gave these youths an ideology that led to such negative consequences. These so-called ‘Islamic thinkers’ have concocted a completely false, political interpretation of Islam. The method of Islam is the method of dawah. The opposite of this is the method of politics. The method of dawah is based on peace. The method of politics is based on confrontation. The two methods are entirely opposed to each other. Based on their particular mentality, people who choose the political method consider others as their enemies. The result of this has been that Islamic movements have turned into political movements. And then, all those wrong things that are linked to politics and political movements have come to be wrongly associated with Islam. As a consequence of its inherent nature, dawah looks upon opponents as potential friends. With politics, it is totally the opposite. Typically, politicians see others as their opponents and enemies. This is the reason why dawah-related action engenders a ‘mercy culture’, while political agitation produces a ‘hate culture’. In a society characterized by the ‘mercy culture’, goodness will