He has to raise himself from the level of animal amorality to the level of human ethics. In spite of experiencing feelings of hatred and having the urge to be violent, he should become the embodiment of love and peace. When negative sentiments corrode his heart, he should be able to rid himself of them and make himself a positive thinker.

To put it briefly, despite possessing total freedom, he should of his own free will become an example of moral, disciplined behaviour. One who thus conducts himself will pass God’s test. Only those who act in this way will be selected by the Lord, the Creator and Sustainer of this universe, as the beneficiaries of that most wonderful blessing—eternal paradise.

Giving the practical model to obtain peace, Maulana analyzes that people the world over are acting intolerantly and indulging in acts of violence in the name of justice, saying, “Give us justice and peace will ensue”. When people are indulging in acts of violence in the name of justice, peace will not prevail. According to him, peace is always desirable for its own sake. Everything else comes after peace, not along with peace. So, the formula for peace, derived from the Islamic Scriptures, is:

“Ignore the problems, and avail the opportunities.”

When people become tolerant and obtain peace for the sake of peace, what peace actually does is, it opens up opportunities – it creates favourable conditions that enable people to strive. When people avail the opportunities thus created, they eventually obtain justice and other constructive ends. Maulana has developed a full-fledged ideology of peace – derived directly from the Islamic Scriptures – to counter the mentality of violence that banishes the notion that there can be anything acceptable about terrorism. He has presented this ideology of peace in his books: Islam and Peace and The True Jihad, his latest book, The Ideology of Peace, which have re-engineered the minds of people the world over.

There are some who call this kind of peace negative. They say peace has no value unless justice accompanies it. … “Peace with justice” is their watchword. This shows a lack of realism in their thinking. The truth is that justice does not directly follow on from a state of peace. The aim of establishing peace is, in fact, to open up opportunities for the achievement of justice, rather than the actual bringing of justice into being. Peace, of course, is a highly desirable state of being because, once it is established, everyone has the opportunity to make plans, and then achieve whatever he wants. But those who insist on the prior condition of justice going hand in hand with peace will find neither peace nor justice….

Excerpts from Ideology of Peace by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan    More.....>