TOWARDS GLOBAL PEACE
We often talk of peace in the context of war. But this is a very narrow and restricted notion of peace. Peace is deeply linked with the entirety of human life. Peace is a complete ideology in itself. Peace is the only religion for both—man and the universe. It is the master-key that opens the doors to every success. Peace creates a favourable atmosphere for success in every endeavour. Without peace, no positive action—small or big—is possible.
THREE AGES OF WAR
MAN is by birth an egoist. He wants everything to happen his way. He wants the whole world to be just as he wants it to be. Acknowledging the rights and interests of others is against his instinctive way of thinking. It is this feature of man that is the fundamental cause of various forms of social conflict. When these conflicts assume a violent form, they become what is called ‘war’. Because of this mind-set of man, war has been a basic aspect of human history down the centuries, with history being characterized by a pervasive climate of war. Hate, violence and war—all these are different manifestations of man’s egoistic nature.
Studied from this angle, history reveals itself to have passed through three periods of war. The first is what can be called ‘Political War’; the second, ‘Class War’; and the third, ‘Ideological War’.
The long period of the ancient past was the Age of Political War. Political wars were basically waged in order to conquer territory. In the 19th century, in the name of Communism a new concept of war came into being—Class War. Communist thinkers developed a theory according to which there is one basic cause for every sort of evil, and that is, social divisions based on economic class. They claimed that by putting an end to these divisions and establishing a classless society, a society free from all evils would become a reality. This theory won considerable support among people. In 1917, the Communists got the opportunity to establish their first government—in Russia. Later, this regime expanded, and soon it became a ‘superpower’ in the form of the Soviet Union. Following this, the world witnessed the confrontation of two warring blocks, one represented by the Soviet Union and the other represented by the USA. The conflict between these two blocks ended in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, class war, too, came to an end for all practical purposes. But influenced by the Communist movement, a new ideological age came into being, which can be called the Age of Ideological War. Ideological war did not get much support at the global level. But among Muslims it did obtain widespread popularity. The 20th century witnessed the emergence of several Muslim ideologues who invented a political interpretation of Islam, which was geared to fuelling ideological wars. This political interpretation of Islam gained widespread acceptance among Muslims across the world.
Put briefly, the political interpretation of Islam projects Islam as a complete socio-political system. According to proponents of this theory, it is the religious duty of the Muslim ummah to establish this system over the entire world. These people believe that all systems other than the ‘Islamic system’ that exist in the world are evil and false. They contend that the raison d’etre of the Muslim ummah is to put a complete end to every sort of what they call these ‘evil’ systems, no matter what the cost, and to replace these systems with the ‘Islamic system’.
In the 20th century, a number of powerful movements emerged among Muslims in different parts of the world fired with this objective. These movements began disseminating their ideas through writings. But when they saw it was not possible to do away with the dominant forces through simply publishing and disseminating literature, they tried to topple the dominant forces by participating in elections in their respective countries. But they failed to achieve their objective this way too. After this, they began violent wars against dominant forces in different parts of the world. But here too they failed to obtain any success. Despite enormous efforts, it proved to be impossible for them to remove the dominant forces from power, establish their own political dominance and march towards their dream of global ‘Islamic government’.
After this, these movements moved into a third and very deadly phase, which is generally called ‘suicide-bombing’. Their followers were now ready to kill themselves in violent attacks in the hope of thereby destabilizing their supposed enemies and breaking their power.
This Age of Ideological War in the name of Islam still continues, in the 21st century. The devastating attacks of 9/11, when some Muslim youths killed themselves and destroyed the World Trade Centre in New York, are just one manifestation of this age of ideological war.
Here the question arises as to why, despite its utter failure in achieving its goals, the popularity of the ideology based on the political interpretation of Islam has not come to an end in the same way as the popularity of some other ideologies, such as Communism, was ended when they proved to be impractical. Why is it that the ideology based on the political interpretation of Islam continues even now even though it has proven itself to have failed in practice?
The reason for this is the proponents of the political interpretation of Islam have made this out to be, allegedly, a cardinal tenet of Islamic faith or belief. In ancient times, war always took place for worldly purposes, such as disputes over territory. But the rise of Democracy and the formation of the United Nations made it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for one country to conquer and control for long another country’s territory. And so, the Age of Political War came to an end. Likewise, the two World Wars proved that class conflict as a fundamental feature of humankind was only a hypothesis and that the ideology that was based on this hypothesis was not a practicable one. As a result of this, the Comintern (Communist International), which sought to promote class conflict all across the globe, ended, and along with it the theory of class war.
According to the proponents of the political interpretation of Islam, Islam is a ‘complete system’, in the sense of an alternative socio-political system. But they go even further than this and claim that the issue of a Muslim’s eternal salvation depends on this ‘system’. They argue that a person’s success in the Hereafter depends on his role in establishing this ‘system’ in this world. They claim that if a person strives to establish Islam as a ‘complete system’ on Earth, he will get eternal Paradise in the Hereafter after death, while if he does not make such efforts, he will face eternal Hell. Hence, according to the ideologues of the political interpretation of Islam, Muslims have just two choices: either they realize the goal of the global ‘Islamic system’ in practice or else they keep up with their confrontation and conflict until they achieve this goal. According to them, a third option is simply impossible.
This means according to the political interpretation of Islam, the issue is fundamentally an ideological one. Their opponents may wage war against them and kill them, but after that, those of them who survive may be determined to continue on the very same path, because they believe it to be nothing less than a matter of religious belief. According to them, death in this supposed ‘holy war’ is not merely being killed, as is understood conventionally. Rather, they believe that dying in this war will bring them instant entry into Paradise. They believe that death in such a war gives them the status of ‘martyr’ and dispatches them to Paradise, their desired destination.