The Road to Peace
All things in the universe are entirely interdependent. Things that are interdependent are related to one another in such a close way that each one needs the other in order to exist. The universal law governing this inter-relatedness is also generally applicable to human society, in the sense that, in the human world, great things can happen when each individual plays his own role without interfering in the sphere of others.
At present we see Muslim militancy almost everywhere. And Muslim countries are no exception. When Muslim countries have Muslim rule and Muslim administration, why is militancy also in evidence there? It is because Muslims in these countries are not following the above universal principle.
To illustrate this, I would like to give two examples from the Muslim world.
In Egypt, King Farouk’s rule ended in 1952. Then Gamal Abdel Nasser became president. At that time the Muslim Brotherhood took on the role of the opposition to the government. There was a power struggle between these two factions. To settle the matter, the then president Gamal Abdel Nasser, made a good offer to the Muslim Brotherhood. But Sayyid Qutb, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, refused the offer. This fact has been mentioned in The Lives of the Two Revivers – Hasan al-Banna and Syed Qutb:
‘Nasser…tried to persuade Qutb by offering him any position he wanted in Egypt except its Kingship, saying: “We will give you whatever position you want in the government, whether it’s the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Arts, etc.” Qutb refused every offer.’
Sayyid Qutb was a very important leader of the Arab world and the acceptance of any one of the above proposals would have opened up great opportunities for him. In ancient Egypt, the Prophet Joseph was likewise offered a post in the department of agriculture by the then reigning king. Now, in the same country, Sayyid Qutb was offered the position of head of the department of education by the contemporary government. It would have been highly advisable for Sayyid Qutb to accept the offer and then make plans to educate his people. Had he done so, he would have been very well placed to have an effective influence on a whole new generation in Egypt. In this way, he would have been better able as an educator to bring the Islam he wanted into his country than in the position of an administrator.
The same happened in Pakistan. When General Ayub Khan became the president of Pakistan in 1958, Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi and his party were active in the name of the ‘Islamization of Pakistan’. At that time the same series of events took place in Pakistan as in Egypt.
In The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jamaʻat-i Islami of Pakistan, Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr writes:
‘During a trip to Lahore in 1962 he [General Ayub Khan] invited Mawdudi to the governor’s mansion and suggested that he leave politics to the politicians and dedicate himself to religious studies instead. For encouragement he offered Mawdudi the post of vice-chancellor of the Bhawalpur Islamic University. In no mood to be appeased, Mawdudi rejected both the offer and the counsel.’
This offer by Ayub Khan was a golden chance for Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi. By accepting this offer, he would have been able to organize education throughout the whole of Pakistan and thus prepare the minds of a whole new generation, which in turn would have been greatly helpful to him in reforming Pakistan. However, he turned down the offer and a great opportunity was missed.
The grave issue facing the Muslim community today is that they have been left behind in the international race of education. The responsibility for this backwardness rests entirely on the present-day Muslim leaders, who have been unable to recognize the opportunities on offer and have failed to avail of them by wise planning.
Why have Muslims become involved in the violent culture of the present age? There is just one reason for this: Muslims’ backwardness in the field of modern education. Because of educational backwardness, they have failed to discover the nature of the modern age.
The grave issue facing the Muslim community today is that they have been left behind in the international race of education. The responsibility for this backwardness rests entirely on the present-day Muslim leaders, who have been unable to recognize the opportunities on offer and have failed to avail of them by wise planning.
The modern age was a supporting factor for Islam, but because of their educational backwardness Muslims have come to regard it as inimical to Islam. This is the basic reason why Muslims have failed to engage in peaceful planning for their revival, and have become unwisely enmeshed in the culture of violence. It is only when they fully realize this fact that there can be a new future for Muslims.
