The Religion of Peace

Probably the greatest tragedy of later Muslim history is that, despite this clear commandment, a tradition of violent politics, wrongly labelled as ‘jihad’, emerged among later generations of Muslims. This mentality became so deep-rooted and widespread among Muslims that what was truly the religion of mercy came to be thought of as the religion of jihad in the sense of qital or war, in complete contradiction of the following Quranic statement: And We have not sent you but as a mercy to the worlds. (21:107) Accordingly, the bulk of the literature produced by later generations of Muslims reflected this mentality, directly or indirectly. The commentaries on the Quran that were written in this later period also clearly indicate the deep-rootedness of this mentality by claiming that following the revelation of verses in the Quran that sanction war, the Quranic verses about patience and avoidance had been abrogated. Hadith reports were collected and compiled, and chapters about jihad were prepared in great detail. Yet, none of the books of Hadith had any chapters on dawah work. The same is true with regard to all the books of jurisprudence, or fiqh. The fiqh texts discuss jihad and related matters in very great detail, but not a single fiqh text has a chapter on dawah and related issues. The same is true for the entire corpus of Islamic literature produced in the later period. From Ibn Taimiyah to Shah Waliullah, and from Shah Waliullah to present-day writers, almost no Muslim scholar prepared any book on the topic of dawah. Even if some book does have the title ‘Dawah and Tabligh’, it may actually be about politics or the rewards for pious deeds. As a result of the mindset created among Muslims on the basis of this sort of literature, many Muslims regard people who engage in confrontation as heroes, while those who do not adopt this method do not gain any popularity among them. And so, our preachers and writers greatly highlighted the role of Imam Husain, but the role of his brother, Imam Hasan, was never highlighted in the same way. Salahuddin Ayyubi, who fought the Crusaders, won great fame among Muslims, but there is no mention in our history books of the men who, using peaceful methods, helped convert the Tartar marauders to Islam and