TOWARDS GLOBAL PEACE

It is easy to understand how extremism or ghulu, stems from this flawed perception. In the early days of Islam, the spirit was alive, and was accorded full attention. But when degeneration set in amongst the later generations, external rituals began to be given more importance. This is a frequent occurrence. This can be explained better with an example from the world of business. The phrase ‘customer friendly behaviour’ is often used in business jargon. It means if a businessman is to be successful, he must appear to be friendly to his customers. Now let us compare this with behaviour in the family. You will not hear any parents say that their behaviour towards their children is ‘child friendly’. The reason for this difference is that the spirit of love for their children wells up naturally in parents, and so they do not need to talk about it nor make a display of it. The case of a businessman is totally different. A businessman has no love or compassion for his customers. It is solely the desire for commercial gain that inspires him to make a display of these qualities. It is human nature that wherever the internal spirit is alive, no importance will be attached to the externals, while in the absence of spirit, maximum attention will be paid to formal etiquette. This is the human mentality that produces the phenomenon called ghulu. It is a fact that ghulu, or extremism, is invariably relevant to externals and not to internal realities. When we look at the Muslims of today we find that the prediction of the Prophet has come true. One kind of ghulu that has developed among Muslims is the one pertaining to ideology, for instance, the concept of spiritual leaders being intermediaries between God and man, and the concept of sacredness of graves. Today violent activities are going on in the name of jihad all over the world. There are some who are directly involved, while others justify these acts in their speeches and writings. A third group consists of those who are silent. But according to the Shariah principle, they too are involved, for silence is not enough; it is their duty to publicly condemn such un-Islamic acts. This political ghulu is the greatest weakness of Muslims; it has overridden all the human qualities that qualify a community for a position of honour The greatest duty of the Muslim community is to spread the divine message of Islam peacefully among other nations.