Arvind Dilawar in the Los Angeles Review of Books: AFTER THE END of the United States’ occupation of Afghanistan in 2021, the international community sought to preserve local advances, especially in women’s rights. The United States continued to press the recently restored Taliban government, officially known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, using economic coercion instead of military might. Norway attempted to salvage its own projects in Afghanistan too, including women’s access to education, but through diplomatic relations. As a result of these different approaches, the new Afghani government quietly permitted Norwegian all-girls schools, even while closing similar organizations connected to American institutions.
Qamar-ul Huda opens the first chapter of his new book Reenvisioning Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution in Islam with the differing American and Norwegian approaches to Afghanistan, illustrating how international efforts to end wars and support peace in Muslim countries can be successful, especially when conducted on Islamic terms.
To orient readers with the realities of peacebuilding and conflict resolution, Huda, a professor of international affairs at the United States Naval Academy, first identifies the religious character of international organizations. As he writes, “one of the key problems with the field of religious peacebuilding, a subset in conflict resolution, is that it is dominated by Catholic, Mennonite, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, and other Christian scholars,” whose approaches have been “streamlined, systematized, and normalized […] while occasionally including Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, Sikh, and other traditions to appear inclusive.”
Although Huda does not call out any such organization by name, they range from the American Friends Service Committee to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which have Christian roots but are entrusted to perform their duties in essentially secular ways. So too, Huda argues, should Muslim organizations be entrusted, especially in Muslim contexts.
To that end, Huda explores significant schools of Islam as they relate to war and peace. The first point of reference for all Muslims is the Qur’an, meaning all Muslim sects should incorporate its emphasis on peace, which Huda describes as fundamental to both Islamic thought and practice: “For Muslim theologians, the world is a mixture of opposing forces that may conflict or harmonize depending on the situation. Its relative peace is to be increased or achieved; this can be done only by bringing it closer to the Absolute Peace of God.”
More here.
