Religion, World Order, and Peace: A Muslim Perspective

Abstract

Religion, World Order, and Peace: A Muslim Perspective Abdulaziz Sachedina David Little’s piece on “Religion, World Order, and Peace,” has underscored the importance of engagement with religious communities and their leaders in making the international order more peaceful and free of intolerance and violence. His essay has identified several topics of special concern with the purpose of garnering the active support of religious communities whose traditions are open to all sorts of retrieval by different interest groups within a single normative tradition to either further or stifle the positive role religion can play in public sphere. In the following pages, I will endeavor to address specific issues that need to be raised in the context of Islamic tradition and its political/public goals that need to be reformulated to accommodate the reality of not only the plurality of religions but also intrafaith relations that seek justification in the normative sources of Islam, such as the Qur’an and the Tradition (Sunna). Based on my field experience in the Muslim world, I will also focus on the importance of the need for the UN to connect to religious leaders in Muslim nation‐states and not just their autocratic rulers. Relevant in this connection is the public–private issue as navigated by an Islamic understanding of pluralism and consensual politics and the UN’s need to get religiously literate to influence the course of events in the Muslim world to promote freedoms of religion and expression as the fundamental human rights of all citizens. Obviously, the latter goal cannot be achieved without holding accountable those who continue to rule with force and violence even when they lack the necessary political legitimacy. Since 9/11, the world of the faithful in Muslim societies has been in turmoil because the living Islam, dominated by its traditional interpreters, the learned ulema, has not been able to guide the community at the most critical period of its existence. As indicated by Little, it is not only “flawed” religion that can become the breeding ground for violence and conflict; it is also the unjust politics that becomes the source of a violent posture adopted by religiously sensitive people to combat their corrupt leaders. To say that Islam is a peaceful religion that has been hijacked by a few militant extremist is to mislead the world to its internal tensions generated by different versions of Islamic ideals—from those versions advocating peaceful coexistence to those urging full conquest of the world for God’s religion. Likewise, there is a range of views within Islam about appropriate responses to undemocratic governance in the Muslim countries. The internal dialogue among Muslims has as yet to confront the real questions about Islam’s spiritual and moral potentials that could be harnessed by the national governments and an international body like the UN to bring about peaceful resolution to ongoing conflicts in many parts of the Muslim world. A real partnership between the UN and Muslim religious leadership that may hold a key to unlock those interpretations of Islam that can further peace has not as yet been realized. The acute problem that the international body faces is its inability to garner the support of the influential religious leaders who could act as conduit to the goals that were articulated on the occasion of the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders in the year 2000. I am sure that the question: “Who speaks for Islam and Muslim communities?” has been on the mind of many organizers at the UN. With the lack of political freedom in most of the Muslim countries where human rights violation occur more frequently, the UN needs to seek other ways of implementing incremental progress in people’s right to consensual politics. This is the key to correct many areas of concern in Little’s “topics of special concern.” The two areas of special concern, in my opinion, are as follows: first, the need for the UN to identify influential spiritual/moral leadership in the Muslim world, who are also deeply committed to the reinterpretation of the Islamic normative sources and their implementation in advancing democratic governance with a commitment to uphold international conventions...