Page 35 - Non-violence and peace-building

Non-violence and Peace-building in Islam

adopt pragmatic or realistic methods. They rose up
in revolt, because of which Nebuchadnezzar, King of
Babylon, once again attacked Palestine. After a siege
that lasted several months, he entered Jerusalem, where
he completely destroyed the Jewish Temple.
This happened in 587 B.C.E.

The Jewish king Zedekiah tried to flee, but he was
captured, along with many of his men. A large number
of Jews were also taken into slavery. They were taken to
Babylon to work as slave-labourers.
The Jews (who were the muslims or ‘submitters’ of the
ancient period) faced many such difficult times in their
history. They considered all these events to be a result
of the oppression by other people. But God knew this
to be entirely different. God attributed all these events
to the Jews themselves. They were divine punishment
for the corruption and degeneration that had set in
among the Jews, and not, in fact, an expression or result
of oppression by others, unlike what the Jews thought.

A study of Jewish history reveals that in the period of
their degeneration, a number of leaders emerged among
them, driven with false dreams and wishful thinking.
These people have been termed as ‘false prophets’ in
the Bible. The Bible relates that they used to stir up
the Jews with their talk about the Jews’ glorious history,
feeding them on the wine of false pride. They greatly
exaggerated the status of the Jews, while denigrating
their enemies. With their emotionally-driven rhetoric,
they fed Jews with dreams of an imaginary world. This
made the Jews turn extremely unrealistic. In place of

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