Violence in Religions

Hieu Nguyen

Humanity 201- 11a.m MWF

Violence in religions

Nowadays, many critics insist that Islam practice violence due to many wars and catastrophes involve Muslims. To answer the question whether Islam actually promote violent acts among believers and understand why it does so, we need to take a close examination of relevant verses and contexts in the Holy Qur’an- the Islamic central religious text. By comparing and contrasting to the way St. Thomas Aquinas depicts religious enemies of Christians, wars, and justice in Summa against the Gentiles and Summa of Theology, I then argue that justice is the ultimate goal of religious practices, balancing between violence and peace. However, eye-for-an-eye concept included in those religious view of justice is not ideal today.

The Qur’an divides the religious enemies into two groups. The first one includes Jews and Christians, who follow the genuine scriptures from the same God: “We believe in what was revealed to us and in what was revealed to you; our God and your God is one [and the same]; we are devoted to Him” (29:46). However, the Qur’an claims that Islam is the faithful religion which continues Judaism and Christianity because it follows the same line as other prophets before Muhammad (5:48) and it is the true faith (3:19). Therefore, even though the Qur’an concurs that God “assigned a law and a path” to each of Jews and Christians, they must have proper judgments because it is their responsibility and challenge that God gives them (5:48). In other words, because each religion has its own law, Jews and Christians must not be forced physically to follow the true faith, but “it would be better for them” to do so (3:110); otherwise, God will punish them due to their sins and false judgments (4:46; 5:49-50). Thus, among the first group, there are still the unfaithful who “know the Scripture through only wishful thinking” (2:78), “[hide] a testimony from God” (2:140), or “distort the meaning of [revealed] words and have forgotten” what they should remember (5:13), and, therefore, must be punished (9:29). However, “they are not all alike” (3:113), and people who trust God will be protected by Him (3:149).

The second group is non-believers who are neither Jews or Christians. Those people not only distrust God, but also show their enmity toward Islam, drive Muslims out of their home, and kill them (3:195), ridicule and make fun of the true religion (5:57), or try to “kindle the fire of war” and “spread corruption” (5:64). They deserve severe punishments, namely excommunication (3:28), or death (9:5). Nevertheless, if those unbelievers realize what they wronged themselves and accept the true God, He will offer them salvation (3:117). Different from the first group, God grants believers the right to penalize unbelievers by killing, chopping their heads, fingers, and strictly compel them to follow the true faith. It indicates that, according to the Qur’an, other previous Jewish and Christian scriptures should also receive the same respect as itself because all of them are words of the true God. However, because they gradually became mixtures of divine truth brought by the prophet of God and distortions created by some of their followers (3:78), God delivers the Qur’an to identify the distorted truth, and confirm the real one. Therefore, “People of the Book” who are misguided wronged themselves in relationship with God, so they must deserve penalties from God. In contrast, non-believers who attack Muslims are worth being punished by Muslims.