KORAN AND NON VIOLENCE.

[Barisaheb] assured me that there was warrant enough for Satyagraha in the Holy Koran. He agreed with the interpretation of the Koran to the effect that, whilst violence under certain well-defined circumstances is permissible, self-restraint is dearer to God than violence, and that is the law of love. That is Satyagraha. Violence is concession to human weakness, Satyagraha is an obligation. Even from the practical standpoint it is easy enough to see that violence can do no good and only do infinite harm.

Some Muslim friends tell me that Muslims will never subscribe to unadulterated nonviolence. With them, they say, violence is as lawful and necessary as nonviolence. The use of either depends upon circumstances. It does not need Koranic authority to justify the lawfulness of both. That is the well-known path the world has traversed through the ages. There is no such thing as unadulterated violence in the world. But I have heard it from many Muslim friends that the Koran teaches the use of nonviolence. It regards forbearance as superior to vengeance. The very word Islam means peace, which is nonviolence. Badshahkhan, a staunch Muslim who never misses his namaz and Ramzan, has accepted out and out nonviolence as his creed. It would be no answer to say that he does not live up to his creed, even as I know to my shame that I do not one of kind, it is of degree. But, argument about nonviolence in the Holy Koran is an interpolation, not necessary for my thesis.