Islam: a religion of Peace
 

This is taken from Dawn yesterday. Dr S.S.M. Ashraf done good this article was also publish with little amandments in local saudi news

ISLAM is a religion of peace and solidarity. It negates all ideas and acts pertaining to gangsterism, cheating, dishonesty, backbiting, foul language, grudge, arrogance, personal enmity, murder and destruction.

Prophet Muhammad (SAW) migrated to Medina after patiently enduring the extreme conditions and hostilities in Makkah for 13 years. He performed a noble task of preaching the Message of Allah and finally escaped the torturous enclaves of the non-believers. He laid the foundation of the first ever Islamic state and kept this state clean of all the social and other ills. A society was formed which was based on truth, principles, peace and high moral values. This Islamic state was completely run under the laws of Allah. Very soon the world witnessed that the nomads of Arabia, who lived the lives full of murder, adultery, theft and craftiness, were transformed into persons living a life of exemplary morals and values.

There was a lot of emphasis on education during the time of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (SAW) as well as during the times of the subsequent four Caliphs of Islam. This is the reason that at the time when the West was completely ignorant and under-developed, the Islamic world was the centre of learning, culture and education. The Muslim way of life was based on brotherhood, love, affection, honesty and compassion. All the above traits come into existence due to the presence of Islam and its teachings.

It is true that out of all the scriptures ever sent to the world, the Holy Quran is the only Book which still exists in its original and unadulterated form while all the others have lost their originality and consequently their followers also went astray. Such people formed their own interpretations from those books and fell into adopting social ills in their daily lives.

It is quite astonishing to see how conveniently and instantly a person’s individual act of terror is linked with Islam. This is a conspiracy and a defamation tactic against Islam. Isn’t it a fact that the Islamic schools are much more ancient than the so-called incidents of terrorism during the present times? One will never find any acts of terror in entire history of the Islamic institutions and, therefore, it is important to examine the causes.

The subcontinent always had a large number of Islamic schools and hundreds of thousands of Muslim scholars have been offering religious services both within their countries and abroad. It is an open secret that the intelligence agencies constantly monitor the activities of the Islamic schools and the students within such schools. Neither a single known terrorist has ever been arrested from any famous Islamic institution nor has any such institution ever been reported against.

As we look into the list of names of the well-known terrorists, we will find that not a single one of them graduated from any Islamic school. Therefore, it is hard to accept that the Islamic schools are the training camps or the breeding grounds of the terrorists. Similarly, all the rest of the big names in terrorism, are graduates of the conventional western universities. Till today, it was generally believed that poverty, illiteracy, economic disparity and violence are the causes of terrorism. However, the current facts have shown that terrorism is directly proportional to the wealth in the family. In other words, the richer the family of a person, greater are the chances of his becoming a high-profile terrorist.

One more quite visible fact is that leading terrorists are also quite highly educated and possess very high skills. Whether it is the attack on the World Trade Centre, any other act of terror or the editing of the Al Qaeda audio-video tapes on the internet, all are demonstrations of excellent professional expertise. The London police department has reported about the existence of a gang that wants to play havoc with the western world in the name of the entire world.

This gang consists of 45 doctors who are graduates of various prestigious western universities. These doctors are running their network through the internet. An ex-officer of the CIA and an expert on foreign policies, Mark Sagaman, has pointed out in his recent report that at least 63% of all the people involved in the acts of terrorism, are college graduates. Out of these 75% are those who also have professional and post-graduate degrees. Only 13% of such individuals were less educated or uneducated and they did not normally belong to any religious school.

It is quite evident that a person from a poor family cannot even dream of entering into a professional or prestigious institution of higher education. For the poor kids, these Islamic schools are the only option where boarding, food and education are free. Here they learn the religion and get some worldly education as well.

Majority of these students remain within the bounds of their school and are mostly unaware of the events of the outer world. They even hesitate to go to the railway stations of the city and prefer travelling by the bus. These students are very uncomfortable in dealing with the police or going to the local police stations. Under these circumstances it is very unfair to label such shy students of the Islamic schools with terrorism. This is utter discrimination and narrow mindedness.

The terror sponsoring organisations also keep on improvising their operations to better tackle the changing western policies. This is the reason that these terror sponsoring organisations hire doctors, engineers, scientists and other technical experts rather than the students from ordinary Islamic schools.

The rate at which the educated people in the West are converting to Islam, it has become a major source of concern for the West. It is also true that the way the highly skilled and professional Muslims are progressing, the Islamic schools are not keeping up with that pace.

The Muslims who are living in the West are mainly linked with some kind of a professional career and are more fervent Muslims. In Britain, 30 per cent of the doctors are from the Asian Muslim countries. With the rise in the number of Muslims in the western world, their governments are conspiring against Islam.

Those, who label Islam as a religion of terror or declare the Islamic schools as the breeding ground for terrorism, will soon be caught up with the wrath of Allah and will be sorry for their actions. Islam brings the message of peace and stands for unity.