Page 105 - Non-violence and peace-building

Non-violence and Peace-building in Islam

the community worship their ‘elders’, others worship
some ‘thinker’ or the other. Some consider some or
the other living person to be ‘holy’. Others give this
status to deceased people. Their gatherings resound
with praises of the glories of some human figures or
the other, not the glories of God. Their talk about pure
monotheism is simply a means to express their claim
of ideological superiority over other communities and
derive a sense of pride from this. As far as their actual
practice is concerned, the Muslims’ condition is, by and
large, no different from that of other communities.
In the same way, Muslim writers and speakers
fervently declare that, according to Islam, God is
one, that humans are one, and that all Muslims share
one scripture. They seem to think anything less than
universal unity as lowering Islam’s greatness. They
loudly announce, “We have a clear Shariah that provides
guidance for all aspects of life!”

Now, all these assertions are undoubtedly true. But
for Muslims, these are all now just things to be talked
about. If you see their practical lives, you will discover
that they behave in a completely contradictory manner.
For instance—and this is an undeniable fact—there is
no community anywhere in the world that is as badly
divided and torn apart by strife and conflict than
Muslims. Going by the way Muslims’ behave, you might
think that they have nothing in common with each
other and that there is nothing that can unite them. In
this context, then, it would be right to claim that the
word ‘unity’, which Muslims never cease talking about,
is simply a means for them to express their claims of

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