Most Americans do not understand or appreciate Islam. Much of what people think is not accurate at all. Despite how some people have perverted the faith, Islam actually teaches positive values, including compassion, fairness, social/economic justice, nonviolence and peace.
Don’t let the perversions by some individuals and groups deceive you.
Christianity also teaches nonviolence, love, compassion, social/economic justice, and peace. But for about 1,700 years, national leaders and war-hawks have perverted it into blessing their wars.
Likewise, Gandhi kept affirming throughout his life that his Hindu faith inspired his nonviolence. However, during most of India’s history since gaining independence in 1947, India has supported military violence. India even has nuclear weapons now. It’s current leader is a corrupt, militant Hindu who oppresses other faiths.
Buddhism is solidly grounded in nonviolence, but nowadays in a few countries a small number of Buddhists are treating people cruelly and using violence.
Here are some of Islam’s teachings:
“Even if you stretch out your hand against me to kill me, I will not stretch out my hand against you to kill you, lo! I fear Allah, the Lord of Worlds.” — Abel, speaking to Cain, his brother, who has just stated his intention to kill him. — Qur’an 5:28
“A Muslim is one whose fellow brothers are safe from the harm of his tongue and hands.” — Al-Bukhari, Book II (Belief), Hadith 10
“One of the main principles of nonviolence in Islam is stated in the well-known saying o the Prophet, ‘La Dharar wa la Dhirar,’ which can be translated as ‘not to harm and not to be harmed.” — Commentary by Zeki Saritoprak (in the Houston Catholic Worker newspaper, vol. XXVI no. 4) on Hadith 32 (related by Ibn Majah, Al-Daraqutni and others) from An-Nawawi’s Forty Hadiths
“None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.” — Hadith 13 from An-Nawawi’s Forty Hadiths, and also in the collections Sahih Muslim and Sahih al-Bukhari
“And the servants of the Beneficent Allah are they who walk on the earth in humbleness, and when the ignorant address them, they say: Peace.” — Surah 25, Surah Al-Furquan (The Criterion), verse 63, M.H. Shakir.
