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The Role and contribution of Islam in promoting the Culture of peace in a Globalized World (Part 4)

Apr 25, 2008, 6:39 AM | Article By: By Dr. Omar Jah Jr. - Head of the Humanities Department, University of the Gambia

2-Divine Balance of Powers as Means for the World Peace

Unlike what thinkers like Samuel Huntington in his the "Clash of Civilizations" believe to be the case,Islam does not believe in the clash of civilization. As will be elaborated later, Islam believes and promotes the idea of unity of existence and peaceful human relationship. For Allah, people are made in tribes in order to respect each other and to see unity in diversity.

However, due to the fact that we are living in a world of causality and that evil must be stopped, Islam believes in the idea of balance of powers as a means to peace through the curbing of tendencies of war.

The Qur'an stresses:

And if Allah did not check one set of people by means of another the earth would indeed be full of mischief is an acceptable al-Baqarah, 2: 251

The prescription of the war of self-defense in Islam must be read against the back ground of the necessity of stopping the evil of the greedy war mongers whose aims have always been to hypnotize the innocent masses into their materialistic agenda, to subjugate free human mind and to jam his fitrah (innate purity).

When one analyses the Islamic legislative package of the war of self-defense and self-determination, one will realize this reality. The first injunction revealed to that effect was al-Haj, 22: 39, which provides:

Permission to fight is given to those who are fought against because they are wronged

And al-Baqarah, 2: 216, says:

Jihad is ordained for you though you dislike it.

So, if the whole package as scattered in different Surahs is read in toto, the reality will prove that in Islam peace is the origin and war has always been imposed on Muslims

Even today if reality is uncovered and disinformation cleared one will see that all the bloodshed happening in the Muslim world is externally imposed for the benefit of a few

And the difficulty in many minds is to understand the nature of Islam, which unlike many other religions cannot accept subservient or disgraceful peace. The truth is that when one intentionally, provocatively and repeatedly scratches the back of a true Muslim, he/she will hit back to stop evil.

Today, in this globalized world, those who make conventional, atomic and nuclear bombs wrongly perceive the world peace as a threat to their positions. It is a capitalist reality that such weapons have to be sold to the world market and the best means of doing so is to interrupt the natural flow of peace and that what is exactly happening