The Culture of Peace

The Culture of Peace Waiting is also a Solution Awaiting the bounteous abundance of God is an excellent form of worship—this is what we learn from a hadith recorded by atTirmidhi. Every individual and group repeatedly faces difficult situations. On such occasions, people, whether consciously or otherwise, take this difficulty to be a permanent condition, and so they immediately begin to fight against it. But this sort of fighting always proves to be futile. Its only outcome is that it adds some more difficulties to an already difficult situation. No difficult situation lasts forever. It is always temporary. And so, the only easy solution to a difficulty is to adopt a policy of waiting. That is to say, one should not unnecessarily start fighting against a difficult situation. Instead, one should simply adopt a ‘wait-and-see’ policy. As a result of this policy, you will save yourself from losing your peace of mind, and whatever has to happen will happen in its own time. When people are faced with a problem, they generally look for an instant solution. This is the basic problem. If, instead, one adopts a wait-and-see approach, the problem will no longer remain a problem at all. Divine Warning, Not Oppression by One’s Fellow Men According to a hadith, the Prophet is said to have predicted with regard to the Muslim ummah that that soon people would summon one another against them just as when eating, people call others to share their meal. Events show that this prediction came true in the second half of the 18th century with the emergence of European colonialism. The Europeans later began being joined by other communities. And this process is continuing till today. The question is: Why did this happen? A study of the Quran reveals that this happened directly in