The Culture of Peace

The Culture of Peace people abstain from such politics of conflict and remain satisfied just with verbal exhortation, peace will always prevail and society will not degenerate into a jungle of violence. Peaceful Means Are Better A hadith recorded in the Sahih al-Bukhari sheds light on a very important Islamic teaching. According to this tradition, whenever the Prophet had to choose between two methods with regard to any matter, he would always choose the easier one. If you view this choice of the easier option in the context of violent versus peaceful methods, it would be true to say that whenever the Prophet was faced with any issue, he chose peaceful, and not violent, methods to deal with it. This is because violent methods are definitely difficult, while peaceful methods are certainly easy. However, this is not simply a matter of ease versus difficulty. Rather, it means that peaceful methods are always efficacious, while violent methods are always ineffective. Instead of solving a given problem, violent methods only further exacerbate it and make it seem even more complicated. In this regard, we learn from the hadith referred to above that a more difficult method is one which makes it more difficult to achieve one’s goal. In contrast, an easier method s makes attaining one’s goal easier. Flexibility, Not Rigidity A hadith report likens a true worshipper of God, to a soft plant, which, whenever it is faced with a gust of wind, bends accordingly. And when the gust dies down, the plant once again stands up. In this way, it saves itself from troubles and difficulties. According to this hadith, there are two ways to face a storm. One way is to be rigid when faced with it. The other way is to be flexible. Another way of putting this is to say that one way of