WATER INSTEAD OF BLOOD
Mr. Muhammad Afzal Ladiwala, 35, who lives in Bombay, recounted this incident at a meeting on February 24, 1991. On January 22, 1991, there was a cultural program at Rang Bhawan (Dhobi Talao), which Afzal attended. The program ended around 11:30 p.m. After it finished, he went to Bombay VT station and took a train to Kurla; by then, it was roughly 12:30 a.m. The distance from the station to his lodging (Hillow Pul) is about two kilometers. He decided to take a three-wheeler and waited on the road. Just then, a three-wheeler appeared, and he had paan in his mouth. To call the three-wheeler, he quickly spat out the paan, and by chance, a passenger who was standing nearby ended up having the entire mouthful land on his foot.
The passenger immediately flew into a rage and said angrily, “You eat paan and you don’t even know how to behave when you eat it.” Afzal, a regular reader of my Urdu magazine Al-Risala, responded not with anger, but with calm words. He said, “I admit my mistake. Eating paan was wrong, and what I did afterward was wrong too.” The man grew angrier, but instead of replying to his provoking words with more provocation, Afzal said, “Please forgive me.” The man retorted that it was easy to do something wrong to someone and then say, “forgive me.”
Mr Afzal replied, “Brother, I am not asking for a formal forgiveness; I ask for it from my heart. Now please allow me to wash your foot.” When Afzal offered to wash his foot, the man softened a little, and after some more words, he finally agreed to let Afzal wash his foot. There was a tea shop nearby; Afzal went straight there and said, “Uncle, give me a glass of water.” When he brought the glass, the man had cooled down completely and said, “Give it to me; I will wash it myself.”
The man took the glass in his hand and washed it. One glass wasn’t enough to make him completely clean, so Afzal ran and brought another, continuing this process until the man’s foot was thoroughly clean. This incident happened outside the railway station. During the conversation, Afzal told the man, “Brother, if you were a M (Muslim), or even if you were a NM (Non-Muslim), I would have to do the same because Islam commands us to do so.” Hearing this, the man embraced Afzal and said, “Brother, I am a non-Muslim, and this is the first time in my life I have met a Muslim like you. If other Muslims were like you, all quarrels would end.”
Now the man was completely changed. Earlier, he had been burning with anger and a thirst for revenge, but now, feeling ashamed, he said to Afzal, “Brother, please forgive me. I caused you great trouble. Because of me, you had to bring water, and you even missed your three-wheeler.” Afzal replied, “Please don’t embarrass me. The real fault in this matter was mine, and bringing the water was my duty, which I have fulfilled.” The man who, at the beginning of the incident, had been blaming the other, in the end admitted his own fault, felt ashamed, and began asking for forgiveness.
At the time this occurred, there was severe communal tension in the Jogeshwari area of Bombay, about fifteen kilometers from Kurla. Under those circumstances, if Afzal had responded to provocation with more provocation, the outcome could have been what has happened in many similar situations elsewhere: communal unrest, with loss of life and property. It could have been that instead of reaching home, Afzal, God forbid, would have been taken to the hospital, and Hindu-Muslim rioting in the area could have destroyed hundreds of families.
After telling the story, Afzal said: at that moment, I remembered the teachings of Al-Risala. It was the mindset Al-Risala had given me that kept me from becoming inflamed at the moment of provocation and, as a result, saved me from a terrible outcome. The glass of water I brought prevented hundreds of people from reaching that ghastly end where blood would be spilled on the streets. Words can act like fire or like ice: some words can stoke a man’s anger into a furnace, while others can cool his blazing temper. It is up to the speaker which of the two he chooses.
