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The following quotations were taken from “New Statesman” – the article “The Power of a Dangerous Idea” by Mehdi Hasan which can be found at this link: http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2011/12/violence-faith-violent-arab
“We chose non-violence not from cowardice or weakness but out of moral conviction; we don’t want to reach victory by having destroyed the country,” wrote Matar [a Muslim in Syria] in one of his last posts on Facebook. “We want to arrive morally, so we will stick to this path until God works His will.”
The truth is that the doctrine of non-violence can be found at the heart of every religion because, as the Catholic priest and noted pacifist John Dear puts it, “Non-violence is at the heart of God.”
For more than six decades, the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibet’s Buddhists, has refused to budge on the question of non-violence, despite discontent among his more militant and younger followers.
“Jews are not allowed to dominate, kill, harm or demean another people.”
The two undisputed icons of non-violent resistance and civil disobedience in the 20th century were both men of faith: Mahatma Gandhi, a devout Hindu, and Martin Luther King, a Christian pastor.
Gandhi made it clear that his adherence to non-violence was based on religious, not secular, principles. “Non-violence is a power which can be wielded equally by all – children, young men and women or grown-up people,” he wrote in 1936, “provided they have a living faith in the God of love and have therefore equal love for all mankind.” For the Mahatma, non-violence was “an active force of the highest order. It is soul force or the power of Godhead within us.”
In his speeches, King, a Southern Baptist minister, often invoked the Sermon on the Mount, in which the “Son of God” told his followers not to “resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew, 5:38-39).
Faith-based non-violence is on the rise and, in adopting peaceful and non-coercive methods of reform and revolution, religious people have reasserted their belief in our common humanity, as well as in God. As Gandhi put it, “Non-violence requires a double faith: faith in God and also faith in man.”
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