PEACE AMONG INDIVIDUALS

Islam has laid down detailed injunctions which regulate the relations of individuals towards one another:

God commandeth you to do justice, beneficence and kindnessto kith and kin.(Ch.16:V.91)

In this verse of the Holy Qur’an God has set forth three injunctions.The first step is the step of justice. A Muslim is enjoined to discharge his duty and obligations quite faithfully and honestly and in the best way he can. No violation of the rights of others is permitted. When justic becomes to him a matter of course,he is required to do more than mere justice. He should be beneficent to others. When beneficence begins to appear to him not a very high stage of morals, he should be kind to his fellow people as a mother is kind to her son.

The first stage of morals is of doing good in proportion to the good received; the second stage is of doing more good than the good received; and the third and the highest stage of morals consists in doing good to others, not in return of a good received, nor in doing more good than the good received,but in doing good as prompted by natural impulse without the expectation of any reward or even any appreciation or acknowledgment.

Nothing seems more ironical than that the religion of which the very name signifies peace, which stands for freedom of conscience, which has enjoined upon its followers to respect the religious beliefs of other peoples and to protect their places of worship even at the risk of their own lives, a religion which has struck at the very root of religious acrimony by requiring its followers to believe in the missions of all the Prophets of God and in the Divine origin of their teachings, a religion which has laid down teachings that if fully acted upon would bring about an era of perpetual peace,should be looked upon as a religion breathing war and preaching hatred and a religion propagated at the point of the sword.

But such really is the prevailing view about Islam. Let there remain no doubt about it that Islam positively forbids the use of force for the propagation of its teachings.