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Q&A With Maulana Wahiduddin Khan on Challenges in Life

Maulana, this world is aggressively competitive. Competition, you say, is good, but it often escalates into aggressive confrontation. How should one manage this? 

Competition is part of nature. Take the case of children. They fight with each other every other day. But then they quickly make up. This is nature. 

Your question reflects a concern about relating to negative people, who see competition as aggression or who react to competition with aggression. If someone like this gets angry with you, quickly say, ‘You are right, and I am wrong.’ At once you will find that the problem has been solved!

It is in your hands, not in someone else’s. It all depends on how you handle the situation.  

You repeatedly stress that we should save ourselves from distractions and that we should focus on positivity. But in the corporate world where I work, vindictiveness is a part of the culture, and often leads to confrontation. Because of this, one gets embroiled in distractions and sinks into negativity. If you try to be competitive, confrontation with vindictive people is inevitable. If I adopt the formula you suggest, saying, ‘You are right, and I am wrong’, wouldn’t I be stunting my intellectual development?

I’ll say just one thing here—that you need to learn the art of retreat. Be ready to retreat at any moment. You must realise that no situation can be entirely good or entirely bad; it’s always a mix of the two. So, in every situation, focus on the good and ignore the bad, and you can progress. Otherwise, you will be constantly escaping from challenging situations, constantly running or seeking to run away. 

I don’t hesitate to retreat when I need to. My sole concern is that the process of my intellectual development should not stop. And so, whenever I need to, I quickly and willingly retreat. Spirit of Islam Issue 35 November 2015 47 Learn the art of retreat management. In a negative situation, do not react emotionally or negatively. And then you will see that things will fall into place.

Retreat is a time-buying strategy. You need to do this sort of buyingtime in your life, too. You can defuse any negative situation if you learn how to manage it properly, if you know how and when to retreat. Personally, I’ve gained a great deal from retreating when and where I need to.

Do you think human beings are naturally and inherently destructive, or is this a human invention?

According to my experience, man is born a pacifist. It is violence that is a human invention. Violence is a corruption. Every person is born as a peace-loving creature. Our true nature is peace. Weapons, war, a history full of violence—all these are human inventions. Not only me, but all pacifists across the world believe that man is born a pacifist and that peace is interwoven in human nature.

Earlier today, I was watching a pigeon. Its every action was very beautiful! Each action reflected an innocent beauty! 

This is the real nature of man, too!

Pigeons and other animals have no choice about their behaviour. They are governed by their instincts and have no option to engage in violence. They live by their nature. They behave according to their instincts. But man has choice. He has freedom. Violence is nothing but misuse of this freedom. Otherwise, man is basically a peace-loving creature, just as a pigeon or a dove is.

Peace or Destruction

If we fail to establish peace, we must face destruction in
every field of life. The option for us is not between peace
and no peace, but between peace and annihilation.