Non-Violence: Islam’s Forgotten Tradition

In his chapter entitled ‘The Betrayal of Tradition’ in ‘With God on Our Side’, Aftab Malik stresses that violence was “neither systematic nor justified by Islamic doctrine”. He quotes Bernard Lewis who confirms that violence was rare and atypical; no one was obliged to make a choice between faith and death as happened in the reconquered Spain and there were no subjection to “any major territorial or occupational restrictions”  (p. 144). 

The long history of Islam is rich with examples of peaceful co-existence where a variety of faiths, races, communities, intellectual trends and other life choices lived side by side and used the power of the word; rather than the tip of the sword to settle differences. From the early days of Islam where in the heat of the Meccan desert Bilal, the believing slave was tortured and his only response was a confirmation of his faith and perseverance, ‘Ahadun, Ahad’ meaning ‘I only worship the One, the Only One’ up until the last hundred years or so, this tradition of non-violence was the defining feature of Islamic history. 

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