NOTES AND COMMENTS
Mohammad Yaqub Khan
Editor The Light
Negative Good-will
AFTER killing a million of men and rendering a crore homeless, India and Pakistan have rediscovered that they cannot do without mutual good-will and if they are not to perish both of them, they must cry a halt to the mad race of mutual hatred and bitterness. What a precious discovery!
Every man of good-will has heaved a sigh of relief even at this belated graceless discovery and wishes the peace-makers success in their efforts. It must not however be lost sight of that a good-will that is thrust on people’s minds out of sheer fear of mutual destruction is a very precarious foundation to build on. It is a good-will of expediency. On the world stage, efforts are being made to manufacture this kind of good-will between the two power blocs out of fear of hydrogen bomb. This brings into prominent relief the Quranic declaration that whoever runs away from the path of nature (Islam) will be forced to turn towards it willy-nilly. That is what is happening to the nations of Europe and America. That is what India and Pakistan are experiencing. Sheer force of circumstances is opening their eyes to the fact that hatred and more hatred cannot sustain society for long. But the question is: Will this kind of artificial good-will carry man far enough? It is very doubtful. The politician’s good-will of necessity must be replaced by religion’s good-will of sincerity and deep conviction. A man of religion looks upon all fellow-men as children of the same Father and hence the genuineness of his good-will. This kind of positive good-will alone heal the wounds of humanity.
Communism A Negative Force
ALL human devices to remove inequities between man and man are of similar negative character; dictated by force of circumstances. Communism is a typical case in point. It is equity thrust on society by force. Here again Islam makes the positive force of love the lever to remove economic inequalities.
وَيُطْعِمُونَ ٱلطَّعَامَ عَلَىٰ حُبِّهِۦ مِسْكِينًا وَيَتِيمًا وَأَسِيرًا
“And they feed the poor, the orphan and the captive out of love for Him.”
(Al-Insan (Man) 76:8)
No forced charity in Islam. Islamic charity is like the proverbial twice-blessed charity which blesses him that gives and him that takes. Communist economic equity is twice accursed. It debases the proletariat who hates the rich and debases the rich for not voluntarily parting with his wealth for the good of fellow men.
Editors’ Conference
EDITORS of Bharat and Pakistan newspapers have met at Delhi in implementation of the Delhi Agreement between the two Prime Ministers, to promote good-will between the two countries. Much of the bitterness between the Hindus and Muslims has been of their creation and the newspapers of un-divided India are directly responsible for much of the great holocaust that came about the time of partition in Bengal, Bihar, Punjab and other parts.
We are not much impressed by these same gentlemen now appearing in ashes and sack cloth. It is our conviction that little-minded people, as most of these newspaper men are, are not capable of anything really big and great. Mahatma Gandhi laid down his very life for a cause and a principle. That is true greatness. It was born of the religious feeling in him. Gandhi the man of religion was much greater than Gandhi the politician. Unless men of true piety and religious values handle the lndo-Pakistan situation, one cannot be very hopeful of results. Let us hope and pray, nevertheless, that some good may come out of these little men`s meetings. To our mind the right solution will only come when this party leadership steeped in “Western” materialistic conceptions of life is swept off on both sides and the administration passes into the hands of men of true religious urge. What is needed is a revolution, not of the proletariat, but of men of religion. That alone will usher in a Kingdom of Heaven when peace and good will would reign on earth.
Pakistan and America
MR.LIAQAT ALI KHAN’S visit to America will bring about better understanding of what this Islamic State stands for. The Premier, in his addresses to the Congress, threw sufficient light on the ideology on which Pakistan is based. It is democracy, he explained, in so far as power is to be wielded by the people, but all power vests in God. America is just now leading the democratic world towards a particular way of life. It is any way far superior to the rank materialist, non-moral, animal conception of society as envisaged by communism. But it is a half-way house. True democracy cannot flourish on the foundations of dollars and the Marshal Plan. It must have purer and deeper springs in God-idea. Lynching negroes and talking of human rights do not very well go together. And yet America is supposed to be the most democratic country. No society can be truly democratic unless it is rooted in a correct conception of God which re-valuates all the existing values. There has been just one truly democratic society in history – the one founded by the Holy Prophet ﷺ of Islam who embraced ebony-black Bilal and fair-coloured Salman with the same affectionate bosom.
With all that, the Premier’s visit should go a great way towards the understanding of the Islamic way of life and be it said to the credit of Liaqat Ali Khan that he fully explained the implications of that Way. It is a pity Muslims in this Islamic State themselves are not quite awake to the full significance of that Way. The Quranic Way is the only way that can give life. Pakistan is the bearer of this great Destiny, this Third Way of life and as the leader of this Third ideology. Mr. Liaqat Ali Khan ranks side by side with Truman and Stalin, if only the people of Pakistan were fully alive to the great revolution that the principle of Islamic State implies.
For one thing, Mr. Liaqat Ali Khan’s address should set at rest all speculation as to which of the two world blocs Pakistan sympathizes with. He made it clear that Pakistan stood for private ownership, and the sanctity of home life and that no threats or ideological allurements would swerve her from her own way of life. This means in plain language that Pakistan will have nothing to do with communism. The Moscow invitation to Pakistan Premier had raised false hopes in communist circles in this country that Pakistan might be drawn closer to the Soviet bloc. Those hopes have been dashed to the ground by the Premiers’ emphatic democratic utterances in America. This is as it should be. Pakistan, a State of God, has little in common with the USSR, a State which is avowedly out to banish God from the world.
America Turns Religious
According to Star
“Thousands of Americans under the pressure of the atomic age are seeking a life of austerity, and contemplation in religious surroundings. Hordes of young New-Yorkers, worried by the trend of times are becoming week-end monks at a Catholic monastery on Long Island. Here they remain from Friday evening till Sunday evening in prayer and meditation, with telephone calls, radio and newspaper rigorously banned. A member of the monastery said the number of demands was so great that they were turning away scores every week. “These laymen”, he said, “know that science has become the Frankenstein monster, its growth utterly shorn of common-sense laws of morality. They know too that prayer and meditation can do wonders for one´s peach of mind.”
What an echo of the Quranic clarion call 14 centuries ago:
بِذِكْرِ ٱللَّهِ أَلَا بِذِكْرِ ٱللَّهِ تَطْمَئِنُّ ٱلْقُلُوبُ
“Listen! In God’s remembrance alone lies peace of mind.”
(Ar-Ra’d (The Thunder) 13:28)
The cry of anguish that is rising from the heart of modern humanity is a cry for the spiritual waters of Islam which alone can quench the universal thirst. Peace of mind is not a thing to be had behind the walls of a monastery. It must be re-discovered in the depths of one’s own soul, in a living realization of a living God who hears and answers the minutest longings and aching of our heart. Young New Yorkers, instead of going to Long Island, will do well to contact Mr. Bashir Ahmad Minto at San Francisco and ask for a copy of the Holy Quran. There they will find every word a healing balm that soothes and comforts an anguished and worried heart.
M.Y. K
(The Light – June 1, 1950)
