The bombardment that ravaged Gaza in January 2009 has provoked much anger and frustration – not just amongst Muslims and Arabic, but broader society also. Over a thousand and three hundred people were killed while thousands others were left homeless and orphaned in this tiny strip of disputed land. In the 21st century, how can the world allow such killing to take place?
For weeks, hundreds of thousands have marched on the streets, from Washington DC to Berlin to Jakarta. Some have called for a peaceful, non-violent movement while a small minority have called for violent retaliation. The religion of Islam commands mankind to stand up against injustice but the religion also provides a strict code of ethics, and no matter the situation, Muslims are not allowed to transgress these boundaries.
Muslims need to look no further than their core teachings of Islam and the life of the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, to realize that the Prophet never behaved as if two wrongs make a right. Here are just a few examples.
Do not allow the hatred of a people to cause you to transgress
The Qur’an tells us,
“Do not allow the hatred of a people to cause you to transgress.”
(Al-Maida: 8 )
And the Prophet, peace be upon him taught us what they call today “anger management”. He said that if you are standing and you get angry, then sit down. If you are sitting and you get angry, then lie down. And if you’re lying down and you’re still angry, go do ablution. That, he said, was a necessary process of controlling one’s anger because otherwise allowing anger to take over your state is a very unhealthy thing to do. He also said:
“Powerful is not he who knock the other down, indeed powerful is he who controls himself in a fit of anger”
(Prophet Hadith)
Rule of war and engagement
At one point in history, Muslim’s army attacked Samarkand (in Uzbekistan). Fighting broke out and eventually, the Muslims managed to besiege the enemy city. After weeks of the siege, in which the enemy was forced to surrender, they wrote a letter to the Muslims caliph Omar Bin Abdel Aziz in Damascus, saying, “Your faith obliges you to make an offer of three things before fighting. Either to pay the tax, or to become Muslim, or to fight. But you fought without offering any of this. Therefore, you should retreat.”
The case was raised to a Muslim judge, and he judged, that despite the toil and difficulty they went through and even though victory was at hand, it was not done correctly and the Muslim army must go back – because Muslims must be people of principle, so when the victorious army willingly went out of the city, the people of Samarkand didn’t believe their eyes and knew that such religion is a truth and worth embracing, so they gathered and requested Muslims to stay in Samarkand because they were very just and this incident encouraged most of Samarkand people to become Muslims.
Honouring one’s promises
In the time of ?Umar ibn al-Khattab(Second Muslim Caliph 634-644), an army was sent out and it besieged the fortress of the Franks who had transgressed against the Muslims. At the most tense moments of the siege, and while there was amongst the Muslim ranks a Frank who had become Muslim.
The Franks from the other side began addressing this man in their own language. So he took a piece of parchment, wrote on something on it and shot it into the Franks’ fortress. Suddenly, the fortress door opened and some men began walking out unarmed. This was because the Frankish Muslim had written them a note of security, as in Islam, any Muslim may write a security note for any non-Muslim even an enemy, so long as they do not have a history of treachery. All Muslims must give that person security, regardless of who wrote it.
The Muslims did not know what to do. They had exhausted themselves in the siege and now one of them who was not long ago a non-Muslim has given the enemy full amnesty. They wrote to ?Umar and he replied,
“The Muslims are one. And the promise of the smallest of them must be abided by all of them. The army should return.”
This discipline to principle was and could one day be the cause of our strength. Some may think, ‘If we follow [principles] like this, given our circumstances now, we will appear weak and it will worsen our scenario.’ Such a one is told,
‘Verily, the principled behaviour is the secret of a people’s strength, to which it is now high time to return.’
By Zena Shakfeh.