SELECTIONS FROM MAULANA’S DIARY
January 3, 1986
Mr Bhika Ram (b. 1942) is an MLA in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly. He came to our office this morning. He was accompanied by his colleague Nazrul Islam Sahib. We had a very fruitful discussion. Mr Bhika Ram said, “For me, the real teaching of religion is that all human beings should be equal. Let all kinds of inequality among human beings end and there should be no hatred between one person and another. He said that this is the teaching of Islam and if true Islam had been presented in this country, our country would have been an ideal one today. There would not have been all the conflicts that are visible now.” He wants to study Islam further in Hindi language. I gifted him the Hindi translation of Man, Know Thyself.
I further asked Mr Bhika Ram to share any particular experience from his life. He said that thinking about all people while letting go of greed and personal gain, and thinking about the welfare of all is the secret of success. You give up greed, only then can you succeed.
January 13, 1986
I was looking at a previous entry from my diary. It contained the following text with the date of November 2, 1979. I wrote this while I was in The Jamiat Building (Old Delhi):
Today, Maulana Muhammad Shoaib Koti and Ghulam Nabi Shaheen Kashmiri had a discussion with me. Both of them accepted the political interpretation of Islam presented by Jamaat-e-Islami. I said that at this time, it does appear that the thinking of Jamaat-e-Islami is dominant in the Muslim world. But very soon the time will come, when this thought will give way and the ideology of Al-Risala movement will become the dominant thought in the Muslim world. You will find this very strange today. But, God willing, you will live to see this. Although I might be dead at that time.
Then I said that the concern of Jamaat-e-Islami has only temporary value. It is not of lasting value. In the atmosphere of the political ideas that arose in the world of the 19th century and the reaction of the Muslims as a result of colonial dominance, Jamaat-e-Islami and the like organizations found centrestage. This thought is the product of a particular political period, not really a product of Islam. These ideologies presented Islam as a political revolution.
The political interpretation of Islam is primarily a reaction to the political conditions of its time. And this time is fast coming to an end. Today’s man wants to stand on the ground of nature. For the future person who wants to stand on the ground of nature, his intellectual satisfaction will only be in the message of Al- Risala and it will probably not take more than ten years for this time to come.
February 2, 1991
The Times of India of February 2, 1991 carried an article by Mr Sham Lal, Win the War; Lose the Peace. I liked the heading better than the contents of the article.
In the two weeks of fighting in the Gulf, nearly 50 billion dollars have been spent. The expenditure will spiral upward every day. Irrespective of who wins the war, the peace has been lost. India won the war of Bangladesh in 1971. But what followed was violence, inflation and rampant corruption, destroying the peace and tranquility forever.
The same story will be repeated, albeit on a much larger scale after the Gulf War. No matter which side is victorious, the misery of the common man will only increase a hundred-fold. The impact will be felt even by the victor.
Regardless of the scale—small or big—on which wars are fought, they are all fought to find a solution to some problem. But every war in turn has created even more problems. A noted western thinker has said: “Problems are created by problem-solving activity.”
There is, however, an exception to this rule—the course embarked upon by the Prophet of Islam. Like other leaders he found himself in confrontational situations, but the difference in his case was that the number of times he actually chose to go to war was almost negligible. In the annals of human history his humanitarianism in solving problems has remained unparalleled.
He faced all kinds of challenges. But the Prophet used peace as his weapon. If the Muslims could only emulate their own Prophet, thus showing the world that peace is the strongest force, they would win their battles without a fight and would find favour in the eyes of God.
Among God’s
beautiful promises is
that He gives more
to those who are
thankful.
