The Lesson of the Spring
On one of my trips to Kashmir, I went with a group of Kashmiris to
a wide valley outside Srinagar. From the towering peaks rivulets were
cascading down the valley. I noticed the way each stream flowed till
it arrived at a boulder. It did not try to break the rock to be able
to move ahead. Rather, when it encountered the rock, it simply
swerved to the left or to the right, around the sides of the rock, and
kept on with its journey uninterrupted.
I said to my Kashmiri brothers: “Look, these streams continue
their journey without clashing with the boulders. If you want, on the
contrary, to achieve your goal through confrontation, you will never
succeed. This is a divine law and according to the Quran, “You will
never find any change in the ways of God.” (35:43)
Then I said that the divine law in this world is based on the
principle of non-confrontation. The law of God for this world is that
any constructive goal is achieved by peaceful methods, and not by
violent methods. I added that the course adopted by the Kashmiris
after 1947 to achieve their goal was one of hatred and violence. Such a
course in this world of God is totally unnatural. For any such course,
nature’s prior verdict is that it will never meet with success.
Friday—Aday of violence
Once a well-educated Hindu pointed out to a Kashmiri Muslim that
in his study of the Quran, he had found in the chapter titled ‘Friday’
the following injunction:
When the prayer is ended, then disperse in the land and seek of
God’s grace, and remember God much, that you may be successful.
(62:10)
The Hindu then went on to observe that although the Quran
enjoined Muslims after saying their prayers to go out and distribute
God’s mercy to people, he saw that once they had left the mosque
after prayers, they took to the streets and shouted slogans, voiced
their hatred and hurled stones at others. In doing so they were going
against their own religion. This observation could be applied not
just to the Kashmiri Muslims but also to the Muslims of the whole
world. Today, the Muslims in every country have turned Friday into
