TOWARDS GLOBAL PEACE

the writings before the hand was cut off and from the writings after the hand was cut off. This man of extraordinary talent died at the age of 56 in his prison. (Hitti, p. 424) Ibn Muqla was also a poet. He penned many verses in mourning his severed hand. He used to say: The hand which wrote a number of copies of the Quran, which recorded a number of Hadith reports of the Messenger of God, which wrote down the court commandments that were sent to the east and the west, was cut off like the hand of thieves. But in this world, such emotional words have no value. Ibn Muqla’s fault was that he did not stop at writing the Quran and Hadith. And whoever goes beyond the limits like this, this is how it ends for him. Ibn Muqla died, but his character is still alive today. There are still many people who are following exactly the path of Ibn Muqla. They invest their opportunities in acquiring personal glory rather than building society. The result is that today the history of the Muslim community has become a history of destruction rather than a history of construction. History can forgive Ibn Muqla of the past, but what is the excuse for the present “Ibn Muqla” who does not put his abilities into constructive work, but is shying away from his valuable opportunities while indulging in self-glorifying acts of personal ambitions? Do they not remember a saying of the Prophet that a believer is not stung twice (by a snake) from the same hole. It is a fact that the best talents have always been ruined by political ambitions. Only those jump into the field of politics who are born with great potential from nature. Instead of putting their great potential into a constructive service, they try to oust political rulers from power. As a result, numerous human lives are lost. Numerous economic resources are wasted. What actually transpires is that some people gain leadership and fame, and instead of one ‘wrongdoer’, another ‘wrongdoer’ gets to sit on the throne. There is no precedent in history that the politics of tussle has ever yielded any real results. The secret of raising the nation is that the leaders of the nation should lower their political flag. When the seeds of individual courage are buried in the earth, then the magnificent tree of the national future grows. Today, our history awaits the same kind of psychological evidence, not murder and death. o