Practice What You Preach

but, rather, simply something for stressing and boosting their communal pride. When it comes to their actions, they are guided by their own desires. But if it is an occasion for expressing their pride, they will sing the praises of Islam, and in this way seek to satisfy their urge to claim superiority over others. The fact is that there is really no difference between Muslim and other leaders. Many of the latter routinely invoke and sing the praises of the country’s Constitution. “Our Constitution has this! Our Constitution says that! Our Constitution is so great!” they proclaim with enormous pride. But their own actions are just the opposite. Muslim leaders behave in exactly the same way. They sing the praises of the Quran and the practice of the Prophet, and in this way fulfil their urge to express their pride. But when the time comes for them to act, they are guided simply by their personal interests and communal prejudices and desires. Our Muslim leaders may not engage in inter-communal violence themselves. But when, because of the foolishness of some ignorant members of their community, communal riots are triggered off, they always lend them their support. They never hold their own people responsible for this, as the case of the Muslim paper quoted above clearly demonstrates. And so, even though they may not physically engage in rioting, they are also to be counted among the guilty. People routinely take the name of the divine religion, but the fact is that they only know ‘communal religion’—wrongly perceiving Islam to be the religion of a certain cultural community.