Virtually every contemporary Western leader has expressed the view that Islam is a peaceful religion and that those who commit violence in its name are fanatics who misinterpret its tenets. This widely circulated claim is false. Relying primarily on Islam's own sources, "Religion of Peace? Islam's War Against the World" demonstrates that Islam is a violent, expansionary ideology that seeks the subjugation and destruction of other faiths, cultures, and systems of government. Further, it shows that the jihadis that Westerners have been indoctrinated to believe are extremists, are actually in the mainstream.

Eight hundred years ago, St. Francis of Assisi embarked on a mission to the port city of Damietta, Egypt, to try and convert Sultan al-Kamil to Christianity. While this did not come to fruition, both the sultan and the saint were able to have a peaceful dialogue and establish a mutual respect that is absent from the present-day polemics of Islam. While many today hold that those who seek to create a universal caliphate through acts of terror in the name of Islam falsely represent their religion, they ignore the original Islamic texts that inspire these perpetrators. The Islamization of our society, however, does not just come from avowed terrorists but from various Islamic scholars and activists seeking to impose sharia law. As a result of the West disavowing its Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian roots, government officials have catered to such injustices since they consider the petrodollar more valuable than the victims of violence. Consequently, they have capitulated our rights of free speech and religion to the point of classifying anyone who questions Islamists’ intentions as an Islamophobe. Islam: Religion of Peace? places Islam in its historical and sociopolitical contexts in order to better understand what has bred the Islamic threat facing today’s society, as well as how many of our political and church leaders have failed to address the problem, thereby creating more instability between both Muslims and non-Muslims. Author Mario Alexis Portella also proposes solutions whereby both peoples may enter into a meaningful discourse and establish harmony.

The eighth volume of the series "Key Concepts of Interreligious Discourses" investigates the roots of the concept of "peace" in Judaism, Christianity and Islam and its relevance for the present time. Facing present violent conflicts waged and justified by religious ideas or reasons, peace building prevails in current debates about religion and peace. Here the central question is: How may traditional sources in religions help to put down the weapons and create a society in which everyone can live safely without hostilities and the threat of violence? When we take the Sacred Scriptures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam into consideration it becomes obvious that the term "peace" and its equivalents in Hebrew, Greek and Arabic describe, at first, an ideal state based on the "love" / "mercy" of God to his creation. It is a divine gift that brings inward peace to the individuum and outer peace resting upon justice and equality. One main task of Jews, Christian and Muslims in the history is to find out how to bring down this transcendent ideal upon earth. The volume presents the concept of "peace" in its different aspects as anchored in the traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It unfolds commonalities and differences between the three monotheistic religions as well as the manifold discourses about peace within these three traditions. The book offers fundamental knowledge about the specific understanding of peace in each one of these traditions, their interdependencies and their relationship to secular world views.

Peace on Earth: The Role of Religion in Peace and Conflict Studies provides a critical analysis of faith and religious institutions in peacebuilding practice and pedagogy. The work captures the synergistic relationships among faith traditions and how multiple approaches to conflict transformation and peacebuilding result in a creative process that has the potential to achieve a more detailed view of peace on earth, containing breadth as well as depth. Library and bookstore shelves are filled with critiques of the negative impacts of religion in conflict scenarios. Peace on Earth: The Role of Religion in Peace and Conflict Studies offers an alternate view that suggests religious organizations play a more complex role in conflict than a simply negative one. Faith-based organizations, and their workers, are often found on the frontlines of conflict throughout the world, conducting conflict management and resolution activities as well as advancing peacebuilding initiatives.

Continuing her journey from a deeply religious Islamic upbringing to a post at Harvard, the brilliant, charismatic and controversial New York Times and Globe and Mail #1 bestselling author of Infidel and Nomad makes a powerful plea for a Muslim Reformation as the only way to end the horrors of terrorism, sectarian warfare and the repression of women and minorities. Today, she argues, the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims can be divided into a minority of extremists, a majority of observant but peaceable Muslims and a few dissidents who risk their lives by questioning their own religion. But there is only one Islam and, as Hirsi Ali shows, there is no denying that some of its key teachings—not least the duty to wage holy war—are incompatible with the values of a free society. For centuries it has seemed as if Islam is immune to change. But Hirsi Ali has come to believe that a Muslim Reformation—a revision of Islamic doctrine aimed at reconciling the religion with modernity—is now at hand, and may even have begun. The Arab Spring may now seem like a political failure. But its challenge to traditional authority revealed a new readiness—not least by Muslim women—to think freely and to speak out. Courageously challenging the jihadists, she identifies five key amendments to Islamic doctrine that Muslims have to make to bring their religion out of the seventh century and into the twenty-first. And she calls on the Western world to end its appeasement of the Islamists. “Islam is not a religion of peace,” she writes. It is the Muslim reformers who need our backing, not the opponents of free speech. Interweaving her own experiences, historical analogies and powerful examples from contemporary Muslim societies and cultures, Heretic is not a call to arms, but a passionate plea for peaceful change and a new era of global toleration. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo murders, with jihadists killing thousands from Nigeria to Syria to Pakistan, this book offers an answer to what is fast becoming the world’s number one problem.

Although religion is almost never a root cause, it often gets pulled into conflict as a powerful element, especially where conflicting parties have different religious identities. Every faith tradition offers resources for peace, and secular policy makers are more and more acknowledging the influence of faith-based actors, even though there remains a tendency to associate religion more with conflict than peace. In this text, practitioners from different faiths relate and explore the many challenges they face in their peacebuilding work, which their secular partners may be unaware of. The contributors are all practitioners whose faith or religious experience motivates their work for peace and justice in such a way that it influences their actions. Their roles are diverse, as some work for faith-based institutions, while others engage in secular contexts. The multiple perspectives featured represent multiple faiths (Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish), diverse scopes of practice, different geographic regions. Each chapter follows a similar template to address specific challenges, such as dealing with extremist views, addressing negative stereotypes about one’s faith, endorsing violence, developing relations with other faith-based or secular groups, confronting gender-based violence, and working with people who hold different beliefs. In this text, practitioners from different faiths relate and explore the many challenges they face in their peacebuilding work, which their secular partners may be unaware of. They provide a comprehensive view of the practice of peacebuilding in its many challenging aspects, for both professionals and those studying religion and peacebuilding alike.

The book provides a comprehensive overview of the literature on religion, conflict, and peacebuilding. With a focus on structural and cultural violence, the volume also offers a cutting edge interdisciplinary reframing of the scope of scholarship in the field.

John L. Esposito is one of America's leading authorities on Islam. Now, in this brilliant portrait of Islam today--and tomorrow--he draws on a lifetime of thought and research to sweep away the negative stereotypes and provide an accurate, richly nuanced, and revelatory account of the fastest growing religion in the world. Here Esposito explores the major questions and issues that face Islam in the 21st century and that will deeply affect global politics. Are Islam and the West locked in a deadly clash of civilizations? Is Islam compatible with democracy and human rights? Will religious fundamentalism block the development of modern societies in the Islamic world? Will Islam overwhelm the Western societies in which so many Muslim immigrants now reside? Will Europe become Eurabia or will the Muslims assimilate? Which Muslim thinkers will be most influential in the years to come? To answer this last question he introduces the reader to a new generation of Muslim thinkers--Tariq Ramadan, Timothy Winter, Mustafa Ceric, Amina Wadud, and others--a diverse collection of Muslim men and women, both the "Martin Luthers" and the "Billy Grahams" of Islam. We meet religious leaders who condemn suicide bombing and who see the killing of unarmed men, women, and children as "worse than murder," who preach toleration and pluralism, who advocate for women's rights. The book often underscores the unexpected similarities between the Islamic world and the West and at times turns the mirror on the US, revealing how we appear to Muslims, all to highlight the crucial point that there is nothing exceptional about the Muslim faith. Recent decades have brought extraordinary changes in the Muslim world, and in addressing all of these issues, Esposito paints a complex picture of Islam in all its diversity--a picture of urgent importance as we face the challenges of the coming century.

Wars in the Persian Gulf and Yugoslavia have given new impetus to the ongoing debate in Japan concerning its postwar constitution and related issues of national security and world order. Although often overlooked in this debate, Japanese religious groups--especially some of the New Religions--have promoted peace as a major theme of their doctrine and activities, often explicitly supporting a pacifist position. This study, undertaken in the wake of the Persian Gulf War, looks at a representative group of New Religions and explores their concepts and practices of peace. Many of the Japanese New Religions draw on a tradition that emphasizes individual moral cultivation and use of prewar terms to describe their mission. One expression, hakko ichiu (literally, "the whole world under one roof") conveys the ideal of world unity under Japanese direction, leading to the establishment of peace. In this way it is a prime example of the prewar idea of establishing peace through the spread of Japanese civilization. The author cites evidence pointing to the prevalence of a mistaken notion of the implications of the pacifist position, a situation that both reflects and contributes to the confusion surrounding popular debates on pacifism in Japan. Prophets of Peace is an attempt to correct that misperception by providing a critical study of the social ethic of the Japanese New Religions--a topic that has been largely ignored in research on new religious movements worldwide. Professor Kisala draws on the literature that presents their doctrine and surveys their believers to describe their approach to the question of peace. The results of this fieldwork are placed within the dual framework of Western peace studies and the modern Japanese intellectual tradition, highlighting the issues of pacifism and the cultural approach to peace in Japan. In his analysis of these results, he offers some observations on the role of religion in contemporary Japanese society and advocates a more positive engagement in the debate on Japan's role in international security arrangements. By offering a representative sample of New Religion groups and focusing on their doctrines, Prophets of Peace provides a different perspective for those whose primary interest is the Japanese New Religions. Although students and scholars of Japanese religion will be the book's first audience, its accessibility and thematic approach also recommend it to readers with a broader interest in contemporary Japanese society, peace studies, and the role of religious groups in modern society.

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.