Being righteous for all the wrong reasons

Another murder, and here we got all the reasons to demonstrate again that we don’t know anything about tolerance . As a matter of fact, we don’t need to think on our own as all our thinking is already done by some very ‘pious’ people. Ones, who we think, know the word of God, because they have beards, trousers up their ankles, beads in their hands and they happened to join the street mosque for delivering summons. These are more than enough reasons to blindly follow someone. We don’t need to know how much research they have done on their religion and how much time they have spent on understanding its philosophy. Whether they are well researched, or they have always been very much consumed with the pronunciation of words from holy book all along and memorizing them with least emphasis on meanings. They have been too busy learning the words that they just didn't understand the meanings of. 
 

Why do we follow them? Because we think they know the word of God that we think…we don’t know. So, we try to quote references we hear from the 'pious' people.
Most of my apparently moderate acquaintances sometimes seem to know a lot about religion. They sometimes can label others good or bad in an instance, giving references from a holy book to prove their point. Impressed by their knowledge on the subject, when you ask where is it coming from? You come to know they haven’t completed reading the mentioned holy book once with meanings, and the references are coming from the Friday sermons. Not that I have anything against Friday sermons, but when the majority uses a holy book to just quote references when they feel like dominating the conversation, understanding its philosophy is out of question. And then things like murders could be justified in the name of Islam.
Bigoted treatment with minorities is opposed to the practice and teachings of Holy Prophet. Imagine yourself being in minority and imagine being treated in this manner just on the basis of your religion. Haven't our own people forced others in minority to hate our religion? I understand freedom of speech should not be about doing or saying things that could result in hurting the feelings of a vast number of people and instigate violence and I’m not justifying blasphemy. But I want to justify, ‘with the privilege of being in majority, comes a test of tolerance’. And we’re failing this test all along. My favourite verse from Punjabi mystic poet, that all of us look up to for his endeavors for interfaith harmony:
Masjid dha de, mandir dha de, dha de jo kucch dainda
Par kisi da dil na dhain, Rab dilan vich rehnda.
Tear down the mosque and the temple; break everything in sight
do not break a person’s heart, it is there that God resides (Bulley Shah).
Bushra Naz
23:49 hours 4 March 2011