Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE Peace and Islam h In February 1998, I participated in a symposium at the American University in Washington, where I spoke on the topic of Islam and Peace. In the course of my speech, I said: It is no exaggeration to say that Islam and violence are contradictory to each other. The concept of Islamic violence is so obviously unfounded that prima facie it stands rejected. The fact that violence is not sustainable in the present world is enough to support the belief that violence as a principle is quite alien to the scheme of things in Islam. Islam claims to be an eternal religion, and an eternal religion cannot have a principle in its scheme which is not sustainable in successive periods of human history. Any attempt to bracket violence with Islam amounts to casting doubt upon the very eternity of the Islamic religion. This means that the term ‘Islamic terrorism’ is, in fact, as much a misnomer as the phrase ‘pacifistic terrorism’. The fact is that all Islamic teachings are based, directly or indirectly, on the principle of peace.