Peace Movements in Islam: History, Religion, and Politics

by Juan R.I. Cole (Editor)

Contrary to the distorted and in many places all-too prevalent view of Islam as somehow inherently or uniquely violent, there is a dazzling array of Muslim organizations and individuals that have worked for harmony and conciliation through history. The Qur'an itself, the Muslim scripture, is full of peace verses urging returning good for evil and wishing peace upon harassers, alongside the verses on just, defensive war that have so often been misinterpreted.
This groundbreaking volume fills a gaping hole in the literature on global peace movements, bringing to the fore the many peace movements and peacemakers of the Muslim world. From Senegalese Sufi orders to Bosnian women's organizations to Indian Muslim freedom fighters who were allies of Mahatma Gandhi against British colonialism, it shows that history is replete with colorful personalities from the Muslim world who made a stand for peaceful methods.

Genres: Faith, Islam

224 pages, Paperback

Published December 16, 2021

About the author

John Ricardo I. "Juan" Cole (born October 23, 1952) is an American scholar and historian of the modern Middle East, Islam and South Asia. He is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. As a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs and US politics, he has appeared in print and on radio and television, and testified before the United States Senate. He has published many books on the modern Middle East and has translated Kahlil Gibran and Omar Khayyam. Since 2002, he has written a weblog, Informed Comment (juancole.com).

Reviews

[Dir Mud 9999 · Rating 4 out of 5]

The presence of this book is enough to add to my repertoire of knowledge and clarify my obscurity about the history of the development and acceptance of Islam in various parts of the world. Controversies, wars, internal conflicts by separatist movements, and the term terrorism have made many people fall into Islamophobia. The presence of this book reinforces that Islam as portrayed by the western world is not so, but a religion with the concept of peace, the value of tolerance and great manners.

Islam in this book is not only studied based on the authentic source, the Holy Qur'an. Interfaith, Sufism, social, organizational, governmental and gender perspectives make the study in this book global and present the facts of Islam as a religion of peace even stronger. The substance that can be learned is a conceptual description of the movement and the concept of peace, how Islam views the meaning of Jihad and War, and the gender perspective in terms of Islamic leadership.

Although this book is full of opinions and arguments supported by sources and evidence, it is still necessary to be wise in reading and judging.

Instagram: @hundovert

[Faisal Chairul · Rating 4 out of 5]

9 esai akademik dari 9 orang cendekiawan Barat tentang teori dan aktivitas perdamaian Islam. Berbicara tentang perdamaian, terdapat sebuah teori yang menyebutkan kalau perdamaian bukan hanya berarti keadaan tanpa perang (perdamaian negatif), tapi juga keadaan ketika tercipta keadilan sosial dan terwujudnya integrasi sosial di tengah-tengah masyarakat (perdamaian positif). Rashid Oemar, dalam esainya, memaparkan bahwa makna perdamaian dalam Islam lebih cenderung masuk ke dalam definisi perdamaian positif. Pengucapan basmalah (Dengan menyebut nama Allah Yang Maha Pengasih Lagi Maha Penyayang) setiap kita memulai aktivitas menjadi sebuah pengingat kalau kasih sayang lebih perlu dikedepankan. Selain itu, Asma Afsaruddin dalam esainya, mengingatkan kalau sikap sabar dan pengendalian diri harus lebih diutamakan dalam berbagai aktivitas yang kita kerjakan.

Islam, yang saat ini semakin dikaitkan dengan kekerasan, diakibatkan oleh bias yang diciptakan oleh berbagai kalangan. Salah satunya ketiadaan studi-studi akademik yang mengangkat upaya-upaya perdamaian yang dilakukan muslim-muslim terdahulu. 4 esai di dalam buku ini mengangkat topik tersebut, di antaranya upaya perdamaian yang dilakukan oleh dua orang cendekiawan asal India, empat orang ulama asal Afrika Barat (Senegal, Mali), cendekiawan Timur Tengah (Rasyid Ridha), tiga perempuan asal Bosnia & Herzegovina pasca Perang Bosnia (1992-1995).

Motivasi mereka semua mirip, yaitu mengedepankan pemaafan, toleransi, humanisme, dan puncaknya perdamaian. Cendekiawan muslim asal India, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, bahkan telah lebih dahulu mengemukakan prinsip perlawanan tanpa kekerasan terhadap penindasan dan ketidakadilan sebelum Mohandas Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi) yang terkenal dengan prinsip serupa. Prinsip serupa juga dikedepankan oleh aktivis-aktivis muslim dari Afrika Barat. Di sisi lain, agak sedikit berbeda, tiga perempuan asal Bosnia & Herzegovina terlebih dahulu mengedepankan prinsip humanisme di awal pergerakannya, mengingat kompleksnya latar sosial negara tersebut pasca-keruntuhan Yugoslavia. Walaupun begitu, mereka mengamalkan dengan penuh keyakinan salah satu prinsip etika dalam Islam yaitu Ihsan, yaitu berbuat baik.

[David Sogge · Rating 4 out of 5]

The eleven essays in this book throw light on facets of Islam, including ‘political Islam', that mainstream media routinely ignore. It turns out that Islam, like most other religions, has no special penchant for violence -- nor for total pacifism, for that matter. On the contrary, in the Near East and elsewhere (Pakistan, Senegal, the USA) Islam has produced ideas, practices, and collective action favouring not merely the absence of violence or ‘negative peace’, but also compassion, reconciliation and other forms of ‘positive peace’.

All the more regrettable, then, that spaces for Islamic peacemaking have been radically reduced by the promotion of fundamentalist schools of Islam bankrolled by oil sheiks (as described in Krithika Varagur’s brilliant book The Call: Inside the Global Saudi Religious Project, which I’ve reviewed here on Goodreads). Those ideological and geo-political pushbacks to peace movements, and to secularism, often with a wink and a nod from Western powers, if not their active encouragement, are barely mentioned in this book.

For readers short of time, the editor’s introduction offers a summary of each chapter and conveys the book’s main purposes.