Military Mindset and Peaceful Means

the movement would henceforth adopt the principle of non-violence instead of violence. This shift rendered the British government powerless, as they could no longer justify suppressing a non-violent movement. It is said that when Gandhi made this announcement as the leader of the freedom movement, an English collector sent a telegram to his secretariat, stating: “Kindly wire instructions on how to kill a tiger non-violently.” This vividly illustrates how non-violence rendered the British government’s violent suppression strategies ineffective. Muslims, by adopting peaceful means, can achieve far more than they could through violent struggle. The failure to understand this reality lies in their continued adherence to an outdated mindset rooted in medieval jurisprudence, which recognizes only violent struggle as a valid means to achieve goals. Anachronistic Attitude Contemporary Muslim leaders and intellectuals, constrained by an imitative mindset, have succumbed to an outdated mode of thinking. The figures they emulate from the past lacked the concept of peaceful methods or nonviolent struggle. While these concepts are clearly outlined in the Quran and Sunnah, deriving rulings directly from these sources requires ijtihad (independent reasoning). Unfortunately, the door to ijtihad was long ago shut, to the extent that, as one scholar remarked, even the key to that door seems to have been lost.