THE CULTURE OF PEACE — Part VI Teachings of Islam

As God says: When the affliction decreed by Us befell them, they did not humble themselves, but rather their hearts hardened, for Satan had made all their doings seem fair to them. THE QURAN 6: 43 This Quranic verse mentions a common human tendency—of dressing up a bad deed in beautiful-sounding words so that its wrongness is concealed. This is exactly what has happened with Muslims in present times. Present-day Muslim leaders have, consciously or otherwise, done exactly what this Quranic verse decries. Those who fail to find God suffer the maximum possible deprivation, and then nothing can cure them of their sense of deprivation. The problems that present-day Muslims face from other communities are foretold as Divine warnings. However, Muslim leaders began expressing these problems in terms of ‘oppression’ and ‘conspiracies’. As a result of this, Muslims failed to see that these events had occurred in order for them to realise their own mistakes and turn to their own internal reform. But Muslims did not realise this, and owing to the erroneous guidance of Muslim leaders, the entire focus of Muslims was directed onto, and against, other communities. These events were intended to make Muslims begin to introspect, but they came to be wrongly deployed in order to criticise other peoples. This tendency began magnifying over time, until today where it has assumed the form of violence and militancy. The Power of Silence Umar Farooq, the second Muslim Caliph, is said to have remarked, ‘Destroy falsehood (batil) by keeping silent about it.’ According to the Law of Nature, truth is destined to live and falsehood is doomed to die. And so, to finish off falsehood it is enough just to keep silent about it. To talk about it or to demonstrate against it is only to give it life. To ignore falsehood and to remain silent on it causes its death. Remaining silent on falsehood simply means to ignore it. It means