Islam Religion Of Peace

Eight hundred years ago, St. Francis of Assisi embarked on a mission to the port city of Damietta, Egypt, to try and convert Sultan al-Kamil to Christianity. While this did not come to fruition, both the sultan and the saint were able to have a peaceful dialogue and establish a mutual respect that is absent from the present-day polemics of Islam. While many today hold that those who seek to create a universal caliphate through acts of terror in the name of Islam falsely represent their religion, they ignore the original Islamic texts that inspire these perpetrators. The Islamization of our society, however, does not just come from avowed terrorists but from various Islamic scholars and activists seeking to impose sharia law. As a result of the West disavowing its Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian roots, government officials have catered to such injustices since they consider the petrodollar more valuable than the victims of violence. Consequently, they have capitulated our rights of free speech and religion to the point of classifying anyone who questions Islamists’ intentions as an Islamophobe. Islam: Religion of Peace? places Islam in its historical and sociopolitical contexts in order to better understand what has bred the Islamic threat facing today’s society, as well as how many of our political and church leaders have failed to address the problem, thereby creating more instability between both Muslims and non-Muslims. Author Mario Alexis Portella also proposes solutions whereby both peoples may enter into a meaningful discourse and establish harmony.

Virtually every contemporary Western leader has expressed the view that Islam is a peaceful religion and that those who commit violence in its name are fanatics who misinterpret its tenets. This widely circulated claim is false. Relying primarily on Islam's own sources, "Religion of Peace? Islam's War Against the World" demonstrates that Islam is a violent, expansionary ideology that seeks the subjugation and destruction of other faiths, cultures, and systems of government. Further, it shows that the jihadis that Westerners have been indoctrinated to believe are extremists, are actually in the mainstream.

Contrary to the distorted and in many places all-too prevalent view of Islam as somehow inherently or uniquely violent, there is a dazzling array of Muslim organizations and individuals that have worked for harmony and conciliation through history. The Qur'an itself, the Muslim scripture, is full of peace verses urging returning good for evil and wishing peace upon harassers, alongside the verses on just, defensive war that have so often been misinterpreted. This groundbreaking volume fills a gaping hole in the literature on global peace movements, bringing to the fore the many peace movements and peacemakers of the Muslim world. From Senegalese Sufi orders to Bosnian women's organizations to Indian Muslim freedom fighters who were allies of Mahatma Gandhi against British colonialism, it shows that history is replete with colorful personalities from the Muslim world who made a stand for peaceful methods.

The eighth volume of the series "Key Concepts of Interreligious Discourses" investigates the roots of the concept of "peace" in Judaism, Christianity and Islam and its relevance for the present time. Facing present violent conflicts waged and justified by religious ideas or reasons, peace building prevails in current debates about religion and peace. Here the central question is: How may traditional sources in religions help to put down the weapons and create a society in which everyone can live safely without hostilities and the threat of violence? When we take the Sacred Scriptures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam into consideration it becomes obvious that the term "peace" and its equivalents in Hebrew, Greek and Arabic describe, at first, an ideal state based on the "love" / "mercy" of God to his creation. It is a divine gift that brings inward peace to the individuum and outer peace resting upon justice and equality. One main task of Jews, Christian and Muslims in the history is to find out how to bring down this transcendent ideal upon earth. The volume presents the concept of "peace" in its different aspects as anchored in the traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It unfolds commonalities and differences between the three monotheistic religions as well as the manifold discourses about peace within these three traditions. The book offers fundamental knowledge about the specific understanding of peace in each one of these traditions, their interdependencies and their relationship to secular world views.

Continuing her journey from a deeply religious Islamic upbringing to a post at Harvard, the brilliant, charismatic and controversial New York Times and Globe and Mail #1 bestselling author of Infidel and Nomad makes a powerful plea for a Muslim Reformation as the only way to end the horrors of terrorism, sectarian warfare and the repression of women and minorities. Today, she argues, the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims can be divided into a minority of extremists, a majority of observant but peaceable Muslims and a few dissidents who risk their lives by questioning their own religion. But there is only one Islam and, as Hirsi Ali shows, there is no denying that some of its key teachings—not least the duty to wage holy war—are incompatible with the values of a free society. For centuries it has seemed as if Islam is immune to change. But Hirsi Ali has come to believe that a Muslim Reformation—a revision of Islamic doctrine aimed at reconciling the religion with modernity—is now at hand, and may even have begun. The Arab Spring may now seem like a political failure. But its challenge to traditional authority revealed a new readiness—not least by Muslim women—to think freely and to speak out. Courageously challenging the jihadists, she identifies five key amendments to Islamic doctrine that Muslims have to make to bring their religion out of the seventh century and into the twenty-first. And she calls on the Western world to end its appeasement of the Islamists. “Islam is not a religion of peace,” she writes. It is the Muslim reformers who need our backing, not the opponents of free speech. Interweaving her own experiences, historical analogies and powerful examples from contemporary Muslim societies and cultures, Heretic is not a call to arms, but a passionate plea for peaceful change and a new era of global toleration. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo murders, with jihadists killing thousands from Nigeria to Syria to Pakistan, this book offers an answer to what is fast becoming the world’s number one problem.

In this world, for one reason or the other, peace remains elusive. Differences--political and apolitical--keep on arising between individuals and groups, Muslims and non-Muslims. Whenever people refuse to be tolerant of these differences, insisting that they be rooted out the moment they arise, there is bound to be strife. Peace, as a result, can never prevail in this world. The book highlights the role, which Islam can play in maintaining peace.

From Anwar al-Sadat’s dramatic gambit in 1977 to the surprising declaration of the Abraham Accords in 2020, making peace with Israel was always a tough sell for Arab regimes. Through an analysis of hundreds of fatwas, sermons, essays, books, interviews, poems, postage stamps and other media, Peace in the Name of Allah examines how Egyptian, Jordanian, and Emirati political and religious authorities introduced Islamic justifi cations for peace with Israel, and how those opposed countered them. The discussion demonstrates the fl exible and ambiguous nature of revelation-based political discourses; Islam is neither ‘for’ nor ‘against’ peace with Israel – people are, as different Muslim political actors take competing or even contradictory positions.

From New York Times bestselling author of Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus Nabeel Qureshi—a former Muslim—comes his deeply personal, challenging, and respectful answer book to the many questions surrounding jihad, the rise of ISIS, and Islamic terrorism. San Bernardino was the most lethal terror attack on American soil since 9/11, and it came on the heels of a coordinated assault on Paris. There is no question that innocents were slaughtered in the name of Allah and in the way of jihad (meaning warfare against the enemies of Islam, in this case). But do the terrorists' actions actually reflect the broader religion of Islam? The answer to this question is more pressing than ever, as many Muslim refugees are still migrating to the West, seeking shelter from the violent ideologies of ISIS, Al-Qaida, and other radical Islamic groups. Setting aside speculations and competing voices, Qureshi explores the answers to difficult questions like: What is Islam, and is it a religion of peace or violence? Is there a clear definition and doctrine of jihad? How are we to understand jihad and radical expressions of Islam in relation to our Muslim neighbors and friends? Why is there such a surge of Islamist terrorism in the world today, and how should we respond? How does jihad compare with Old Testament calls to warfare? In Answering Jihad, bestselling author Nabeel Qureshi answers these urgent questions from the perspective of a former Muslim who is deeply concerned for both his Muslim family and his American homeland.

In a world that increasingly sees religion as a source of violence, this book explores resources from within religious traditions that might help build peace. Drawing from the rich textual histories of Christianity and Islam, the contributors mine their faith traditions for ways of thinking and ways of being that help shift perceptions about religion, and actively contribute to the growth of peace in our troubled times. Not content with retreat into religious exclusivism, these essays are an act of sharing something held dear. In sharing, the thing offered no longer remains the possession of the one who offers, and so these essays are an act of vulnerability and trust-building. In sharing precious things together, in giving and receiving, peace becomes not only a matter of dialogue, but also shared commitments to ways of being.