The Sensible Way to Respond to Provocation

I responded to the man saying, “You think a lot about the riots that continued for three days in your city. But please also ask yourself that if for the last 30 years there had been no riots there, what was the reason for this? Do you think you can draw lessons only from these three days and nothing at all from those 30 years?” I further added, “This isn’t something linked to only a particular community. It actually relates to every person and to every community. The fact is that within each human being there is a devil, who is fast asleep. This devil is anger. As long as you allow this devil of anger inside others to remain asleep, you can live in peace and security. But if you do something foolish and cause this devil to wake up, it will do everything that it can to harm you. It has nothing to do with any particular community. It applies to Muslims in exactly the same way as it does to others.” “This, in brief, is the root of all communal riots,” I explained to the man. “Riots always emerge from anger and the desire for revenge. The fact is that God has not made a single person who in ordinary conditions is angry and vengeful. No one is perpetually angry, and nor is anyone always vengeful. Anger and vengefulness are results of temporary, not permanent, conditions. If some people were always angry and vengeful, even in normal or general conditions, there would be riots all the time, at every single moment! We would not have had a single day of peace and security, leave alone the 30 years of peace that your city enjoyed!” Islam teaches us to avoid getting provoked by others. In this way, conflict can be prevented. This principle of avoidance is the most effective solution to every kind of conflict. But you can act according to this principle only if you surrender yourself to God’s Will. Otherwise, if you disobey His Will, you will carry on waking up other people’s sleeping egos, and this would inevitably lead to conflict and violence. And then, when riots break out, you