Page 154 - Only Love Can Defeat Terrorism

Only Love Can Defeat Terrorism

superficial order and humanity, poisoning the life of the
town. Children will become troublemakers, the youth will
take to drink, the strong will embark on oppression, and the
elderly start to weep. 57

In societies that turn their back on religion, deceit,
oppression, anarchy, violence and terror emerge. Virtues like
cooperation, sacrifice and honesty go by the board. People
think only of their own self-interests, desiring only their own

comforts and working only for themselves. Yet when a
society lives by religion, then cooperation, friendship and
brotherhood prevail. Later in this same statement,
Bediuzzaman gives examples of the advantages that religious
morality can bring to family and social life:

By analogy, the country is also a household, and the
fatherland, the home of the national family. If belief in the
hereafter rules, then true respect, earnest compassion,
disinterested love, mutual assistance, honest service and
social relations, unhypocritical charity, virtue, modest
greatness, and excellence will all start to develop. It says to
the children, "Give up messing around; there is paradise to

be won!" and teaches them self-control through instruction
in the Qur'an. It says to the youth, "There is Hell-fire; give
up your drunkenness!" and brings them to their senses. To
the oppressor, it says, "There is severe torment; you will
receive a blow!" and makes them bow to justice. To the
elderly it says, "Awaiting you in the hereafter is everlasting
happiness, far greater than all the happiness you have lost

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