Our God — Page 158
158 was absolutely no religious factor involved in the last World War. All the bloodshed—unparalleled in its scope and devastation in the history of the world—was caused only by political motives. So give up politics as it leads to war at times. My dear ones! This is all due to lack of knowledge and ignorance. There is no particular association between religion and intolerance, war, or strife. However, like all other causes of breaches of the peace, on relatively few occasions, religion can be used to create discord, but only in those circumstances where people have forgotten the true teachings of their religion. For instance, during the time of the Holy Prophet saw the Jews and the idolaters waged a war of aggression and injustice against the inno- cent Muslims because they misunderstood the true teachings of their religion. Then, Muslims had to react in self-defence. This led to a state of war which was entirely brought on by the idolaters and Jews, who did not grasp the reality and object of religion. The Muslims engaged in this war only to establish peace. In short, it is absolutely absurd and nonsensical to think that religion causes war and strife. In fact, religion is the only force that can effectively end strife and it is the defiance of the essence of reli- gion that causes breach of peace and conflict. Even if, as a remote possibility, we were to accept that religious differences lead to war and strife, the objectors have no right to turn away from religion inasmuch as there are many other factors that lead to breach of peace and strife and no sensible person gives them up for this rea- son. The fact of the matter is that any dispute, if handled badly, will lead to regretful consequences; this is by no means unique to religion. Poor handling of political, national, commercial, and economic differences leads to war. Likewise, improper application