Man must sow love inspite of hatred

"Do you know, Mr Bhatt, at this moment you are in the company of four Islamic fundamentalists," said my bearded host, suppressing a giggle, as we snailed our way through the weekend traffic on the M1 motorway in England, with three other bearded men in the car.
We were on our way to Leicester, a small town with a huge British Asian population, where I had been invited by the Council of Indian Muslims to address a gathering in the inner sanctum of the famous Al Falah Mosque.
His statement made me smile. I understood why they must find it strange that a man like me should feel so at ease with them, when after 9/11, every Muslim is looked upon with suspicion, and the winds of Islamophobia are blowing into every corner of the world.
The sight of women clad in black burkhas on an English street is strangely disorienting. The moment I stepped into the mosque, the fragrance hit me, opening doors buried in the attic of my memory, when as a small boy, my Shia mother used to push me into the mosque during Moharram, so that I may be cleansed by maatam.
The sight of a little boy sitting in the front row of a gathering of 400 people hurled me violently back to that time and the lines between the past and the present began to blur... I was suspended in time, in a nowhere land of timelessness that only places of worship sometimes seem to exude, be it the heavy silence of a church, the sound of the temple bell, and now this mosque.
They gave me flowers, perfume and a crystal candlestand, telling me this was their way of thanking me for standing up for Muslims in riot-ravaged Gujarat.
"A candlestand to spread the light of love, and perfume so that you may spread the fragrance of sanity." It was unnerving for a man with my past who had no religious beliefs to speak of, to be addressing a crowd of passionate, devout religious followers. And then just like that, the words began to flow and I found myself talking to them about the Prophet.
When asked what was the most blessed struggle, the Prophet replied: "To tell the truth to an oppressive ruler." I implored them to hold up the mirror of truth to the establishment of Gujarat and demand that punitive actions be taken against those who had made their own motherland into an execution chamber.
I could feel my words being soaked up by the crowd and absorbed like dry earth soaks up the first precious drops of rain. And then, before I concluded, I told them something that I had just read about the Prophet.
One day, as the Prophet was planting a date sapling in the ground, someone announced that judgment day was about to descend, and asked him what he would do. Prostrate himself in prayer? The Prophet replied that he would continue to sow the sapling for man must do what he is supposed to do. A man must continue to sow love in spite of all the hatred he may be surrounded by, and I beseeched them to do the same.
When I had finished, the warmth in the hugs that I received from those 400 people made me sure that what I had said would stay with them.
There are 1.2 billion Muslims in this world already. Someone said we have to do better in the 21st century we must learn to understand the Muslims with whom we share this planet. We must learn to respect and appreciate their faith, their needs, their anger, their aspirations and stop demonising them. And there can be no better place to start this essential process than with our own country, our own city, our neighbourhood and our friends.