Peace: The Summum Bonum

S ince the last two hundred years, Muslims have been struggling – for their life and property – but have got nothing in return. Now experience is telling them that all the violence in the name of Islam should be abandoned, as this violence is based on falsehood and has not yielded any result. After a Muslim struggle spanning over thirty years for the Babri Masjid, nothing could be achieved. Then I compared how Japan re-planned after WWII and within thirty years emerged as an economic superpower. Here we found nothing in thirty years of struggle and in Japan there was a re-emergence. This could happen because the Japanese put behind what they had lost. They did not spend a day to fret over what had happened. One Babri Mosque was demolished for Muslims but for Japan, an entire industrial edifice had been crushed. But the Japanese refused to waste their time on revenge and began planning afresh. God has set examples of communities – Japan and Germany – so that Muslims pay heed and replan. This is when the Quran’s message was not sufficient for them. But even if now Muslims do not retract, then they will not receive divine help. How can Muslims in Pakistan realize their mistakes and why are they not receiving God’s help? I was born in a village in UP, which had a road that used to go from Shahganj to Azamgarh. A lot of times I observed in 1947 (when the Pakistan Movement was going on), Muslim youth used to walk on road with banners like ‘Pakistan ka Matlab kya, La ilaha illallah!’ (What does Pakistan mean? It means there is ‘no god but God’). ‘There is no god but God’ is the Islamic creed which determines a person’s entry into Islam. I was thinking that Muslims by singing these words had promised: “O God! Give us Pakistan and we will spread your word everywhere in the world!” This is what they meant by the above slogan. But after the formation of Pakistan, they started fighting amongst themselves. Cricket has a term called ‘sledging’, and when two teams are playing and one team is showing better performance, then the losing team lashes out such provocative remarks that the momentum of the winning team is compromised. Similarly, this momentum after the creation of Pakistan was hijacked by some untoward elements and they went about indulging in negative talk – complaining and speaking of oppression – that this became the common line of thought. In other words, a ‘political sledging’ was carried out and the people of Pakistan were trapped in by these hijackers. As a result, the momentum of Pakistan was devastated. I once went to Iraq where a Pakistani Shiite was also visiting. He was a senior person and had migrated from Delhi to Pakistan. I said to him that you have seen both pre-Partition Pakistan and post-Partition Pakistan. What is your experience? He started weeping and said: