Honourable dignitaries on the dias and off the dias

Very Good morning and Salams, with New Year greetings. I thank my Lord for providing me a chance to interact with intelligent Students like you, more over presence of Reverend father Packiam Samiul is GOD’s blessing for us.

At the outset I start my topic with a supplication from the Psalms(Zubur), as Prophet David asked for wisdom, The Psalms, Book-1 Chapter 119,

• Lord, I am your servant; give me understanding that I may know your testimonies.
• Hold me up, that I may be safe and have regards for your statute continually.
• Let your hand be ready to help me for I have chosen you precepts.
• Great Peace have those who love your law nothing can make them stumble.

Prophet Solomon prays for wisdom as, Book – 7 (15) , (16)

• May GOD grant that I speak with judgment and have thoughts worthy of what I have received for HE is the guide even of wisdom and corrector of the wise.
• For both we and our words are in HIS hands.

Prophet Jesus directs in Bible of Matthew Chapter 7 Verse 7

• Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you.

Prophet Mohammad (B.P.U.H) asks his Lord.

• O, Lord increase my knowledge & wisdom

So following Prophets path I ask my lord to grant me wisdom and make my subject fruitful, fragrant, to touch your heart and soul , Amen

Honourable students, in this electronic era we are more in need of PEACE than ever. For every progress and development, PEACE is the vital need, but there must be it’s enormous urge too. A Peace culture has to be nurtured in society, we know that it is not an easy task but nothing is impossible for this special creature called human-being if it is done by utmost sincerity. Here we must admit that some vital factors like hate, enmity, grudge, rage, fury, anger, revenge, jealousy, unhealthy attitude and competitions are the grounds where violence is nurtured and PEACE culture fades out. There must be awareness about such negatives and evils which are counterproductive for PEACE.

As we are the people of the Book, I would like to share my views in the divine light of heavenly revelations to search out the remedies. The violence we are facing is not a new phenomenon in this world. The tussle between wrong and right, negative and positive, PEACE and violence, disturbance and tranquil will ever remain on the globe as the Creator of the globe says in 21/35:

“Every soul is bound to pass the process of death; and O mankind! WE put you in test through the bad and the good things in this life, by way of trial: and unto US, you all must return.”

In such a test, how to control the violence and how to achieve PEACE. I will try to search it out in the light of heavenly revelations. Friends, as I said earlier that it is not a new phenomenon, let us see how the Prophets and the Messengers appointed by God Almighty tried to achieve the PEACE in the society.

Friends, all such Prophets and their teachings were not for PEACE in this life, but they practised and preached the ways to achieve the eternal PEACE for the life to come after death.

First of all I will take the example of Epic of Monotheism, the spiritual father of Jews, Christians, Muslims and all who practice Monotheism, described with very high esteem in The Qur'an in 2/124

“And when Abraham was tested by his Lord with certain commands, he fulfilled all of them. Almighty God ordained: ‘I will make you a leader for mankind.....’”

So the Imam of humanity, epitome of Oneness of God, Prophet Abraham started his mission of preaching monotheism with sense of accountability in front of God Almighty. His people started a series of violence against him. Abraham kept patience only for the pleasure of his Lord not to disturb the society. But the spate of violence against him was not coming to an end, Holy Qur'an says in 29/26:

“…… Abraham declared:  ‘I will migrate from here for the sake of my Lord, HE Alone is Almighty, truly wise!"’

Prophet Abraham was born and bought up in his land. But for the sake of God Almighty, he left all his belongings and rights but never adopted any negative, unproductive, unethical and pessimistic approach to disturb the society. As there is no room for such negative tactics in natural law and Almighty God has ordained in 41/34:

The next example one must keep in mind of the great Prophet Moses who faced great injustice, opposition and tyranny. When he was asked by his people Bani Israel how to face the situation, the Holy Qur'an narrates in 7/128, 129:

“(Bani Israel cried out that they are constantly suffering from the atrocities of Pharaoh and his people in the land), Prophet Moses said unto his people: "Turn unto ALLAH for help, and have patience in adversity. Verily, the earth belongs to ALLAH: HE gives it as a heritage to such as HE wills of HIS servants; and the future belongs to the God-conscious!”  “………It may well be that your Lord will destroy your enemy and make you inherit the earth: and thereupon HE will behold how you act.”

The human history is a witness for the events followed after. The great Egypt and its great dynasty never came back even after thousands of the years passed. This is the key to solve the problems peacefully with patience to seek the heavenly interference and support, to get rid of injustice, torture, oppression a community is facing in the course of this life, which is of course a short stop over for all, for the tyrant and for the oppressed lot to.

Now let us see the role of Prophet Jesus, the epitome of love and compassion for the humanity. In his period, the Middle East was ruled by the Romans, the outsiders, corrupt by all means having support of the vested interests from the society. There was a corrupt clergy supporting the situation for their own petty interests Jesus and his disciples were facing all such violent opposition. To face injustice, the only lesson he taught the disciples was to keep utmost patience, sacrifice and endurance and seek the help of Almighty God.

The teachings of Prophet Jesus Christ laid the greatest emphasis on God-worship, love of human beings, service to mankind, spiritual development, rising above materialism, treating others well, even if they do not reciprocate, and so on. All these virtues stem from the possession of a superior set of values. And all these values can be established in society by persuasion.

According to the New Testament peace is so important that Jesus said in his sermons.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. (5:9)

I quote here the famous instructions given by Prophet Jesus to his followers that “pay what are the dues of the government to the authorities, and pay to God what are the dues of God.”

• “Peace is what I leave with you; it is my own peace that I give you. I do not give it as the world does. Do not be worried and upset; do not be afraid.” (John 14: 27)
• “Don’t worry about anything, but in all your prayers ask God for what you need, always asking him with a thankful heart. And God’s peace, which is far beyond human understanding, will keep your hearts and minds safe…” (Philipians 4:6-7a)
• “O Lord, give perfect peace to those who keep their purpose firm and put their trust in you. Trust in the Lord for ever;”(Isaiah 26: 3-4a)



And here the life history of the Prophet Mohammed (B.P.U.H) will be final to be considered for the people for solving their petty issues of lands, rights, injustice and oppression. He was born in the family of custodian of the Sacred House of Worship at Makkah. His was the personality, very sincere, very dedicated, most trustworthy, ever-ready to help the poor, widows, orphans. He was accepted as the kind hearted, fore-bearing and pious person having high morality and conducts throughout the life till he reached the age of forty and was enlighten with Prophet-hood and started receiving the heavenly messages called The Qur'an. His preaching of oneness of God, Abrahamic Monotheism, sense of accountability in front of God Almighty and high moral got gross negation and bitter opposition from the society. When the persecution to him and his followers reached the peak, and it was evident that a bloody infighting will start in the city of Makkah, the Prophet avoided such situation and on the request of his followers of Madinah, he migrated leaving behind all his belongings.

Makkan people were smart enough to capture the leftovers but never excused these PEACE loving people even after they left the city. They made it an egoistic issue and successfully spread the hatred against the Prophet and his followers in the whole Arabian Peninsula. They started a series of attack on Madinah. They also debarred the followers of the Prophet to visit Makkah for Hajj and Umrah rituals however it was the tradition since thousands of years not to disallow any one for visiting Makkah for rituals.

The support of Almighty God ever remains to the Truth. After so many armed conflicts, however having power and might more than thrice of the Prophet and his followers, they faced defeats. On the initiatives of the Prophet, they came near to a PEACE treaty, but on their unjust conditions. The Prophet accepted their one sided terms and after that historical treaty which is called Treaty of Hudaibiyah (PEACE TREATY), rest of Arab came to know who is PEACE loving and whose stand is on justice. Once again the history recorded that within two years, the call of the Prophet spread throughout the peninsula very peacefully and major tribes of Arabs accepted his call and became his followers.

Within two years the world witnessed that Makkan people were not following the clauses of the treaty in true spirit. The result was their moral and lethal surrender to the Prophet (s.w.s) and Makkah was now under the Prophet and his followers. In this victorious environment, the Prophet announced full amnesty to them without taking any action for their 2 decades of continuous debaucheries and violence. The epic of it was he didn’t claim the properties left behind while migrating. Even he didn’t claim his own house which was in possession of one of his enemies, height of patience and forgiveness.

So, what was the secret of this great success achieved by the Prophet? The secret lies in one word PEACE. It would not be overstating the case to say the Prophet Muhammad was a great peace activist in history. He exploited peace as an unconquerable force,


Prophet Muhammad once said : God grants to peace, what he does not grant to violence.
 Indeed, in the Quran (21:107) Prophet Muhammad is called the Prophet of Mercy, which is only another name for the Prophet of Peace.


(21:107)



That is why all the teachings of the Prophet are entirely based on the concept of peace. We can say that the Quran is a book on the “art of thinking”. It is in no way a treatise on the art of fighting.

The teachings of Prophet Muhammad and his exemplary way of living show that he not only projected the concept of peace, but that he was also able to develop a complete methodology of peaceful activism. The revolution he brought about was a practical one based on his ideology of peace.

The Quran, in fact, goes to the extent of saying that success depends upon patience alone.

“O People, be patient tolerate others with patience, still be connected to each other, be conscious of accountability, so that you may succeed.” (3:200)

Prophet exercised this law throughout his life and showed that success goes with patience and the tree of success always grows on the land of patience.

God Almighty teaches us the importance of PEACE and its value. But friends, we should not forget that everything has its own price. And the price for getting PEACE is to provide PEACE to others first. Then only, one can hope to get PEACE. The example of Prophet Mohammed teaches us the lesson that if PEACE is available, the price should not be considered and it should be grabbed at any cost. The ultimate result of PEACE will be victory for the truth ever.
The great historian Sir E. E. Kellet writes in his book on the life of Prophet Mohammed that “He faced adversity with the determination to bring success out of failure by his utmost patience and endurance.”
Michael H Hart writes in his book The Hundred: “Mohammed (P.B.U.H) was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both, the religious and secular levels.”

• Other examples are :

Swami Vivekanand, and Indian saint, was once invited to the home of one of his friends, who wanted to test his mettle. When the Swami arrived, he was ushered into a room where the sacred scriptures of all major religious traditions were placed on a table, one on top of the other. The arrangement was such that the Gita, the Hindu religious scripture, was placed at the bottom, and other religious scriptures placed on top of it. Swamiji’s friend was sure that he would be provoked on seeing this arrangement. So he drew the Swami’s attention to the books placed on the table, and asked him to comment. Swamiji simply smiled and said:

     “The foundation is really good.” This successful response from the Swamiji was due to the fact that his peace of mind was not disturbed.

• Some Historical Examples:

Japan’s industrial cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were destroyed by the atom bombs in 1945. After the holocaust, Japan abandoned violence and adopted a peaceful course which it termed a reverse course for its national development. And as a result within forty years, Japan rapidly became a great economic power of the world.

We find a very interesting example of a peaceful method in India. India’s freedom struggle was started in 1857. But, even after more than 60 years of sacrifice, the desired political goal remained a distant dream. Then, in 1920, Gandhiji emerged as the leader of the freedom struggle. Taking a U-turn he abandoned the violent method and opted for a peaceful course of action for the freedom movement.

When Gandhiji launched his freedom movement by following a peaceful method instead of resorting to violent means, a British officer sent a telegram to his secretariat in these code words:

“Kindly wire instruction how to kill a tiger non-violently.”

Therefore the success which was not forthcoming, even after a long and violent struggle, was achieved by peaceful methods in a short period of time.

The nature and its laws are not changed in this modern world. The sun still rises from the east and sets in the west. In the contemporary world, Mahatma Gandhi and his nonviolent freedom struggle is an example.

There is another example of Martin Luther King of the United States and Hon. Dr. Nelson Mandela of South Africa. Now let us see the natural way of achieving Peace in practical life.

Our world functions on the principle of competition. That is why challenges and provocations are never absent from any situation. Our world can never be free from them. That sole remedy for this is to refuse to be provoked even in provocative situations. Peace is the result of such unilateral ethics.

In this world we can find nothing ready-made. Everything has to undergo a process of conversion. That is why we can never find ready-made peace here. We shall have to summon up all our wisdom to convert that which is not peace into peace. Only then can we possess peace. Just as this principle applies to the life of an individual, so also does it apply at national as well as international levels?

• The human body requires blood in system for its survival. But we cannot produce readymade blood in this world. For this we require a system where non-blood, after passing through a particular natural process, maybe converted into blood. Without this conversion, it is impossible to produce blood for ourselves.
  
  
• It never happens that a tree suddenly appears before us in it’s fully developed form. A seed is converted by stages into a tree. We can say that there is a process in nature, which converts a non-tree into a tree, then only a tree stands on the earth in all its majesty.

• Similarly, a cow gives milk only after a natural process of conversion has taken place. It is as if the cow is an industry of nature, which converts non-milk into milk. In a similar way, the food a man requires for his physical sustenance can come into existence only when nature’s factory converts the non-edible into the edible, and man’s digestive system further converts this edible material into flesh and blood.
  
  
• The matter of peace too falls under this general law of nature. Peace is vital for our social existence but we cannot find ready-made peace in this world. Therefore, in like manner, peace can be had only by those individuals or societies who have the ability to convert non peace into peace. We can find peace only when we have demonstrated this ability. Instead of all the negative activities, patience, reconciliation and compromise can get success in natural process.

 I quote here from Holy Qur'an 4/128:

“……And compromise is the best way to settle, while selfishness is ever-present in human nature …”

It is this peace-making process which was expressed by Jesus in these words:

“Give to Caesar what is due to Caesar and give to God what is due to God.” (Luke, 20:25)

Prophet Muhammad also stated _____________________________. Means go on paying dues of human fellow being and ask from GOD for you needs.
This means that, by avoiding a head-on clash with unfavourable circumstances, we may gain time for the achievement of our objectives.

In the context of peace this formula may be expressed thus: Tolerate the state of non-peace so that you may obtain the state of peace. This is the only way to convert non-peace into peace in this world. There is no other path to peace.

Peace activism is ostensibly an external action, but it is the result of an internal awareness. It is a peaceful mind alone that can appreciate the benefits of peace activism and can properly bring it into play. Prophet Muhammad realized this truth. That is why, first and foremost, he worked towards building peace-loving minds. Only after he succeeded in this were he and his followers able to launch their movement, abiding by the principle of peace activism.

The Quran (2:129) calls this action of mind-building ‘purification’ (tazkia). It states that an important task of the Prophet was to work for the purification of minds, in other words, for the purification of the soul.

"O our Sustainer! Raise up from the midst of our offspring a messenger from among themselves, who shall convey unto them YOUR messages, and impart unto them revelation as well as wisdom, and cause them to grow in purity:

How does this purification work? We learn about it from a symbolic Hadith. In it the Prophet said that when a believer commits sin, his heart develops a black spot, but when he repents and seeks forgiveness from God, his heart gets cleansed of it. However, if he does not refrain from committing sins, the spot goes on increasing, until the whole heart is enveloped.

In this Hadith, Prophet Muhammad tells us of a very important truth which is borne out by a psychological study. This study tells us that when some thought comes to human mind, it becomes embedded in the memory’s storehouse, and is never expunged from it. The human mind comprises the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. When any thought enters the human mind, it first goes into the conscious mind and then gradually shifts to the subconscious one. This shifting process takes place mostly while we are sleeping. In this way, although a thought that is fresh in our memory today may be forgotten tomorrow, in reality, it is not lost, but becomes an integral part of our personality. In this way, our thoughts shape our personality.

The unpleasant events that life inevitable entails result in negative thoughts in our minds. These thoughts, if not immediately converted into positive ones, will eventually become part of our personality. It is the possessors of of such negative personalities who become involved in war and violence against others. Violence is simply an external manifestation of a negative personality.

When any negative thought enters one’s mind, one should immediately convert it into a positive feeling. A person who acts promptly to set in motion this process of mental conversion will build up a veritable storehouse of positive ideas in his subconscious mind. Only such people are truly capable of launching a movement for peace.
Prophet Muhammad understood this psychological reality and, through the purification of minds, formed a team of followers numbering more than one lakh who were staunchly committed to the principle of peace activism. While remaining strictly in a peaceful sphere, they were able --- thanks to their positive way of thinking --- to usher in a far-reaching and beneficent revolution. The lesson we take is:

Whatever may be the situation, our approach should be like this.-

_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
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Now I pray to my Lord for the PEACE of globe.

O, Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hate, that I may bring love,
Where there is offence, that I may bring pardon,
Where there is discord, that I may bring union,
Where there is error, that I may bring truth,
Where there is doubt, that I may bring faith,
Where there is despair, that I may bring hope,
Where there is darkness, that I may bring Light,
Where there is sadness, that I may bring joy,

At the end of my words I thank Father Packiam Samuel, Staff of SFS Church, All the students and organizers for giving me this opportunity. I supplicate with this prayer…..

“O, LORD, YOU ARE THE FOUNT OF PEACE, PEACE ORIGINATES FROM YOU, PEACE RETURNS TO YOU, LET US LIVE IN PEACE, LET US ENTER THE ABODE OF PEACE, GLORY TO YOU O OUR LORD, AND ALL MIGHTS ARE DUE TO YOU, O FOUNT OF MAJESTY AND DIGNITY.”

Thank you very much for patiently listening. May GOD Bless us all.

Paper-read by
Dr. Shaheena Khatib

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