The terrorists who assaulted Mumbai had done extensive planning. This made me think why these people were so capable of negative planning, and completely lacked any inclination towards positive planning. This sort of mentality has become endemic among many Muslims. Nobody is doing planning for the positive task of spreading God’s message, and love and peace.

On November 26, 2008, Mumbai witnessed the worst kind of terror attack. Ten terrorists entered several buildings and indiscriminately fired at people, leaving behind several dead and wounded.

The reason for this madness is hatred. Hate can make a man do anything. Hate began from Satan. When God created Adam, He asked the angels and Satan to bow before him. Satan however, did not bow and consequently, God said to him: “You and your followers will go to hell.” Satan had developed such hate for man that despite knowing that he will be cast into hell, he did not obey God’s command. Hate is so blinding that it can take one to hell.

I have studied in the Muslim seminaries and have participated in numerous Muslim gatherings, and in many of these places hatred and pride is instilled in the minds of Muslims. They are taught: We are the caliphs and vicegerents of God on earth.”

I once met an Arab whose first question to me was, “Who are we?”. He then said: “We are the Caliphs of God on earth.” I told him that this is not written any where in our books. The Sahih Al-Bukhari says that Muslims are witnesses of God. That is, they have to spread the message of God on earth. The same is alluded to in the Quran, that is, the task of Muslims is to spread God’s message and lead a life according to His instructions. However, Muslims have made themselves the self appointed Caliphs, and have launched all sorts of movements that propagate the ideology of capturing political power. This thinking emerged when the Ottoman and Mughal empires declined, and Muslims started considering the rest of the world as usurpers and oppressors who snatched their rights and power from them.

Political power is like an examination paper. A test paper can never be the monopoly of one; it would change hands from people to people as God wants to test every community. Hence if political power has been taken away from you then you need to have patience. When political power was with you then it was your test paper and now, when it has been given to someone else, it is their test paper. No Muslim leader could tell this to the Muslims and pacify the political shock which they received after the breaking up of the Muslim empires in the face of Western colonialism. No one told them that their test paper of political power was over and now they should concentrate their effort on some other constructive activities like education, reform, Dawah work etc. In Palestine, for example, it was God’s decision to give the political power to somebody else. Hence, Muslims should have accepted it, but they started fighting and now 60 years of fighting has given them nothing. Muslims should have realized that God had now wanted to test some other community. Therefore, he gave them political power. But Muslims rose up to fight, and it was equivalent to fighting God’s decision and hence they attained nothing. As a result, all the Muslim got conditioned in hateful thinking.

Before the Second World War, the thinking of the Japanese was same as that of the Muslim. Hirohito was the Emperor of Japan at that time. The Japanese had the concept of Imperial Divinity, that is their king-the so-called ‘god –king’ should rule the world. Consequently, they fought with many countries. It was the Japanese who started the concept of suicide bombing known as “hara-kiri”. But in 1945, America dropped two atomic bombs on Japan and the Japanese army was completely destroyed. Japan suffered a humiliating defeat. Then the Japanese developed second thoughts, that is, if the king was god then he would have saved them, but because they were severely crippled due to those bombs they realised that the king was not god. Hirohito then renounced the concept of Imperial Divinity and the Japanese have never looked back since then.

This makes me ponder as to why this hate does not get finished among Muslims? This is because Muslims’ hate is a reflection of a certain mind-set. The so-called ‘god-king’ of the Japanese was proved wrong and therefore the concept of ‘god-king’ died. However, a mind-set cannot be done away on its own. The mind-set which inspires hate for others in many Muslims cannot be killed like an individual. This mind-set can be replaced by de-conditioning alone.

Hirohito said “I’m not god” and this led the Japanese to discard their unfounded notions and pave the path to progress. But the case of Muslims is very different in their case, their mind set has to be transformed to change their thinking. The thinking of Muslims has to be changed. There has to be long process of de-conditioning.

There are two kinds of de-conditioning: one is the Prophetic be-conditioning; that is the de-conditioning which the Prophet did of his companions. Then the companions did the de-conditioning of some of their companions. But now self- de-conditioning has to be done. This is a very difficult task. Ideological de-conditioning has to be done among the Muslims to help them come out of hate.

It is essential to understand the distinction between the negative engineering of the mind and the positive engineering of the mind. Today, minds are being negatively engineered with hatred and pride. Many Muslims live in this fallacy that they are a special race, and when they are not treated specially then they are frustrated and hold others responsible for their not receiving the special treatment that they expect.

The terrorists who assaulted Mumbai had done extensive planning. This made me think why these people were so capable of negative planning and completely lacked any inclination towards positive planning. This sort of mentality, unfortunately, has become endemic among many Muslims. Nobody is doing planning for the positive task of spreading God’s message, and love and peace. This is because as years passed by, this work became dead in Muslims. But it alone can promote positive planning as it requires well-wishing for the whole of humankind. We must therefore focus our energies on spreading God’s love and restrain from any negative and destructive activities.

From: The monthly ‘Islamic World’, Bangalore, January 2009 issue