Issues of Ijtihad

imbibe. They should base their lives on precisely the same universal principle that governs the rest of the cosmos. This means they must abandon the path of violence and confrontation and tread the path of peace. The culture of the cosmos is a ‘culture of peace’. It is because of this peace that the cosmos has been functioning for millions of years and yet has not witnessed any confrontation that could have impaired its functioning. If a ‘culture of violence’ had guided the cosmos, by now it would have been devastated, and there would have been no possibility for human life to exist. The same Creator who created the rest of the cosmos created us human beings, too. The Creator wants human beings to adopt the very same ‘peace culture’ that He has established throughout the rest of the vast cosmos. The only difference is that this ‘peace culture’ prevails in the rest of the cosmos on the basis of nature, while humans are independent creatures and have free will. And so, God wishes that they should freely decide to adopt this ‘peace culture’ in their lives. The Quran, A Book of Peace The Quran is, without doubt, a book of peace. It is not a book of violence and war. All the statements of the Quran are, directly or indirectly, related to peace. The very first