Inner Peace as “the Right Way” to Outer Peace by: Shahram Pazouki

As the title of paper “Inner Peace as the ʽRight Wayʼ (›irāt al-mustaqīm) to Outer Peace” indicates what I intend to clarify is that, although religions can help us to establish world peace, the primary peace upon which all real peace depends is inner peace: it is peace with God and His whole creation (khalq). Thus, within the Islamic context, to discuss the political and legal realities of peace and war, we first need to understand how Islam views these concepts in a general sense: namely, both the inner and outer peace. Once the general Islamic sense of the two terms is clear, we can turn to the specific issue of how traditional and normative Islam would strive to establish peace in today's world.