Pontiffs on the offensive

Excerpts from:
VIEW: Pontiffs on the offensive —Salman Akram Raja
Daily Times, October 5, 2006

The vast majority of ordinary Muslims continue to carry a deeply felt belief in the commitment of their faith to peace and comity. While there is awareness of wars and armed conflict in the history of Islam these are generally recalled as exceptional events necessitated by the defence of a persecuted nascent community. The later conquests are seen as events of no inherent religious significance though conducted by Muslim rulers. Empire building, after all, has been undertaken by various peoples and the need to do so, right or wrong, cuts across races and religions.

During the course of the last century, however, other discourses on the nature of war in Islamic history, more learned than the lightly tutored perceptions of the laity, have arisen. Over time these discourses, initiated not by western orientalists but by self-avowed Muslim revivalists, have moved from the fringe to the centre of Islamic thought. The difference between the Islamist activist and the traditionalist scholar has narrowed as both have increasingly diverged from the gentler folk creeds.

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