Global peace in Islamic perspective (lV)

Also published in Daily Trust  

The pursuit of real global peace is obviously a collective responsibility that requires concerted efforts by all countries as well as regional, continental and international governmental bodies to achieve. The process to attain it, therefore, is unavoidably complex, because it, among other things, involves dealing with increasingly conflicting priorities and interests of many countries from various cultural and religious backgrounds, as well as some powerful vested interests with conflicting agendas that influence the course of international politics today.

In any case, Islam enjoins Muslims, as individuals, communities and governments, to actively participate in any undertaking aimed at achieving positive, constructive and productive things for the humanity. Besides, Islam maintains a particular emphasis on the need to maintain peaceful coexistence among people to ensure adequate protection of human life, wellbeing, property, dignity, among other things. In fact, Islam enjoins Muslims to cooperate with even hostile individuals, communities or entities in order to achieve strategic common interests e.g. peace. Islamic civilization, starting from the era of the messenger of Allah, to the successive Caliphates of his four rightly guided Caliphs and the subsequent Muslim empires and emirates across the world, if full of such instances that show Islamic principled socio-political and diplomatic pragmatism.

For instance, the messenger of Allah (pbuh) demonstrated this when he nostalgically recalled an event he had attended in Makkah where some major Arab clans from the Quraish tribe entered into a treaty to tackle injustice and protect the rights of the poor and the vulnerable in Makkah, particularly visitors and expatriates. The event is known in history as Hilf-Al-fudhool, and the prophet was then twenty years old i.e. twenty years before he was commissioned as the last messenger of Allah on earth. Also, even though when he recalled that treaty, he and the tiny Muslim community in Makkah were being severely victimized, persecuted and harassed by the hostile Makkans in the early years of his mission, he nonetheless, maintained that should he be invited again for a similar treaty he would certainly attend.  

Accordingly, notwithstanding the amount of progress Muslim governments have been able to make towards the achievement of peace in their respective countries; they should also take the lead in pursuit of real and sustainable global peace. After all, in addition to the fact that they suffer the most from the acts of terrorism today, they also need to do more in order to counter the malicious insinuations and blatant propaganda being peddled and promoted by some vested interests trying to link the religion of Islam with global terrorism.

Moreover, while the role of Muslim scholars, thinkers and intellectuals remain indispensable, Muslim governments and their intergovernmental organizations around the world have particularly important roles to play in this regard, for it, among other things, involves the politics of diplomacy, which is only conducted in the corridors of power and on the platforms of regional, continental and international intergovernmental organizations.

In the meantime also, considering how terror theorists often capitalize on Muslims’ justified frustration due to the persistent persecution and brutality being meted out to many Muslim communities around the world, which constitutes the pretext under which such terror theorists manage to indoctrinate many Muslims and incite them to form or join international terror organizations, Muslim governments and their intergovernmental organizations should push for the equitable resolve of such crises around the world, so as to eliminate this pretext as a matter of course. 

For instance, though ever since the Zionists’ occupation of Palestine almost seventy years ago, there have been legitimate Palestinian resistance organizations fighting for the liberation of their land, the failure, or rather, the reluctance of the international community to help end the Zionists’ occupation and their continued cruelty against the Palestinians, represents a strong pretext under which such terror theorists recruit many people and influence them to carry out indiscriminate attacks and other acts of violence wherever they are able to do so, especially in the countries they rightly or wrongly regard as accomplices in the continued occupation of the Palestinian land. Therefore, as long as this occupation and other organized and systematic acts of persecution and oppression in other parts of the world remain unresolved, it will remain practically impossible to check the counterproductive activities of such terror theorists.

Muslim governments and other relevant intergovernmental organizations around the world should, therefore, come up with a comprehensive diplomatic strategy to push for not only the resolve of such crises, but also for the reform of the biased international laws, treaties, charters and conventions that effectively make it impossible to reach equitable resolves for various international crises. For instance, the need to reform the parts of the United Nations Charter governing the composition of the UN Security Council in which only five countries i.e. The United States, Russia, Britain, France and China maintain permanent memberships and also enjoy disproportionate power that enables them to practically manipulate global peace and security, among many other things, has never been more urgent. After all, such parts of the Charter have certainly outlived their purposes, if they ever had any justified purpose in the first place.

Though admittedly, this reform isn’t easily achievable after all, in view of the sheer amount of influence enjoyed by the countries benefiting from the status quo, Muslim countries and their various intergovernmental organizations can initiate a global campaign to mobilize massive global support for such reform, while they also mobilize their individual and collective economic and geopolitical weight, media and other relevant strategic resources towards the achievement of this reform diplomatically. This will certainly facilitate the achievement of global justice, which will greatly facilitate the attainment of real and sustainable global peace. Besides, real and sustainable peace flourishes only against the backdrop of real justice.

It can be concluded from the foregoing that the persistent failure to attain real and sustainable global peace even against the backdrop of what should ordinarily be favourable circumstances for it to prevail, is absolutely paradoxical, which is also due to the failure to adopt a wider and more effective approach to pursue it. Also, Islam maintains not only a wider, but actually the most comprehensive approach in this regard, which is based on its perspective about the concept of peace that transcends the mere absence of violence or threat of violence.

Islam, first and foremost, guarantees absolute peace of mind for individuals, depending on the extent of their respective commitment to its doctrinal principles, teachings and moral values. This represents the perfect basis to pursue and achieve perfect peace locally and globally. Moreover, Islam remains the primary source that guides Muslims’ involvement in any collective undertaking for the achievement of global peace that obviously requires the involvement of all nations regardless of their differences.     

Finally, Muslims’ contribution towards the achievement of global peace should primarily focus on addressing the underlying impediments that frustrate the efforts to achieve it. Therefore, since injustice obviously remains the main obstacle that obstructs its achievement, their efforts should, first and foremost, be aimed at achieving real global justice in order to pursue, attain and maintain real global peace against its backdrop.                 Concluded.