Doctrine of Peace: An Islamic Perspective, an Analysis of the Hindrances in Peace Making Process

The present day global community is confronted with several challenges, absence of peace being the biggest one. The UNO and other regional organizations strive hard to achieve this goal. Unfortunately the world is far from achieving the goal of ensuring peace. It is also a fact that in most cases the Muslim world is in turmoil and it is involved or has been involved in one way or another. In order to find out the real causes of unrest, it is imperative to analyze the situation from academic, political, economic and social aspects.  This article deals with first aspect i.e. The academic. It has three parts, in the first part importance of peace has been elaborated in the light of the Quran and the Sunnah. In the second part, importance of peace treaties of the Prophet (PBUH), and one of His successors Umar, the second Caliph, has been brought in to focus. The issue that the foreign policy of Islamic State is based on perpetual peace has been discussed in this part. While in the third part those obstacles have been discussed which have caused to damage the  peace process in the world.

The Tension Between Muslim Law and Social Realities: A Case of Abortion in Pakistan

This study investigates the issue of abortion in Pakistan from the perspectives of women who go through abortion. In doing so, it discusses whether there is a dilemma between the ethics of abortion based on contextual realities, and the Shari‘a law based on the discourses of the Qur’an and the Hadith and their interpretations and applications in the fiqh. The objectives of the research are to investigate how Muslims take decisions about abortion, and who takes them. The empirical research was conducted in Karachi. Using a case study approach, the data was collected through semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis. Three groups of people were interviewed: women who had experienced abortion, doctors, and religious scholars to seek different perspectives. The women were from different ethnic and socio-cultural backgrounds. The findings reveal that women are often not the sole decision makers. With some exceptions, most decisions are taken by husbands. The decision making becomes difficult where husbands do not cooperate and even threaten to use the law against their wives, which gives severe punishments, except when abortions are performed for health reasons and for necessary treatment. The abortion law in Pakistan, derived from Muslim fiqh, has a narrow scope and there exists a tension between the law and social realities. Thus women suffer the most and risk their lives due to restrictive laws and unqualified abortion service providers. Most abortions take place due to poverty and for economic reasons for which people take pragmatic approaches. They rarely consult religious clergy in taking the decisions but most women felt that abortion was a sin. Yet they asserted that they abort out of necessity. Abortion is also used as a means of family planning. It is concluded that judgments about abortions are made based on ethical reasoning under compelling socio-economic realities rather than on beliefs and law, although there remains a tension between the two. Abortion law in Pakistan should provide for equal and mutual consent of husband and wife and broaden its scope as provided in Muslim law. But there is also a need to generate ethical discourses to draw broad principles rather than rules to solve contemporary issues of abortion.