Non-Violence and Peace-Building in Islam

asking them to burn or hate this community. But the way they [Muslims] are working is generating hatred. Q: How do you think the communal riots can be stopped? A: Ask them [Muslims] not to attack us. And there will be no retaliation. We do not attack; we only retaliate. We will retaliate if they attack. The incident related to the Prophet that the Shiv Sena leader related here is basically correct, although he made some partial errors in narrating it. These errors cannot be said to be tantamount to abusing Islam. At the very most we could correct these errors while accepting what he related as true. In the actual hadith, contained in the Sahih al-Bukhari13, Abu Hurayrah narrates that one day a Bedouin came to the Prophet’s mosque in Madinah and urinated inside. On seeing what he was doing, some Companions of the Prophet rushed towards him. But the Prophet told them to leave the Bedouin and to pour some water on the place where he had urinated, because, he explained, his Companions had been given the task of creating ease, not difficulty. This meant that they should help people, not cause them trouble. Reading Mr. Thackeray’s interview, it seems that he was not hypocritical in expressing his views. He actually spoke very openly. The reality is that by himself recalling a hadith of the Prophet, Mr. Thackeray informed us Muslims of a very valuable secret of how to emerge victorious over all forms of trials and tribulations. But because of their intellectual degeneration, Muslims used this, too, as a means to trigger off a deadly riot that hurt Muslims themselves the most. How very ironic indeed! The Roots of Riots One of the six major collections of Hadith or Traditions of or attributed to the Prophet.