Peace and Justice

is aimed at creating the necessary conditions for working towards securing justice. And this, I said, was in accordance both with reason and with Islamic teachings. When the Prophet Muhammad entered into a peace treaty with the pagan Quraysh of Makkah at Hudaibiyah, he secured only peace, not justice. However, this peace then created a normal, peaceful environment that enabled the Prophet to work and secure justice as well. This clearly shows that justice is not an integral component of peace. Rather, justice can be secured only after peace is established, by using the opportunities that peace provides. It is not a direct and immediate product of peace. The leaders of the Kashmiri militant movement constantly argue that they want the Kashmir issue to be resolved in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nation’s Security Council. In other words, they insist that a referendum be held in Kashmir to decide its political future. This stand proved to be invalid both legally and logically when Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of United Nations, declared during his visit to Islamabad that this resolution of the United Nations had now become irrelevant. However, apart from that I will say something in principle: that one can secure one’s rights only on the basis of one’s own strength and not on the basis of another’s power. It is simply unrealistic and wishful thinking to expect that the United Nation’s resolutions will be acted upon in one’s own favour. Peace and Justice