TOWARDS GLOBAL PEACE

The fact is that there is only one legitimate form of war, and that is war fought in defence. If a nation transgresses its geographical boundaries and openly attacks another nation, then, in such a situation, the nation that has been attacked has the right to reply by fighting in defence. Other than this, there are no legitimate grounds for war at all in Islam. This principle is as firmly grounded and accepted in Islam as in many other non-Islamic systems. In this regard, there is an issue that needs particular attention. It relates to the past, to the period of the age of monarchs. In this period, much of the world was under various dynasties. At that time, the monarch was considered to be above the law. He thought he could do whatever he wanted. Because of this, every king engaged in deeds that were clearly morally or legally improper. Morally improper deeds were committed by kings all over the world in those days. But all this is now just a part of ancient history. However, while in many countries this has been forgotten and did not cause conflict between communities, this is not the case in India, where it has become the cause of considerable and continuing bitterness between Hindus and Muslims, leading to repeated communal riots. It is a major challenge in the path of promoting communal harmony. The basic reason for this is Muslim ulema and intellectuals have wrongly seen and portrayed Muslim dynasties in India as ‘Islamic’ dynasties, considering them to be a chapter of the history of Islam as such. In fact, however, these dynasties merely consisted of rulers who happened to belong to some Muslim families. It is completely wrong to consider their rule as ‘Islamic’ rule. These two things are totally different. But because this difference was not kept in mind, the events that were associated with particular Muslim kings or Muslim dynasties came to be associated in people’s minds with Islam as a religion. Because this basic distinction was not borne in mind, another terrible blunder that Muslims made was that they perceived the period of the rule of these Muslim rulers as a source of Islamic pride. They viewed it as a symbol of the domination of Islam. On the other hand, Hindus began thinking on the lines of what is called ‘righting of historical In society, everyone has the right to peacefully express their views, but the belief that one can use physical force to ‘reform’ others is simply unacceptable when it comes to relations between communities and countries.