Islamic Peace Ethics: Peace Ethics Discourse in contemporary Islamic cultural circles

Abu Bakr stoppt mekkanischen Mob
Abu Bakr stops meca­nic mob

In light of poli­ti­cal events across the world after the end of the Cold War, it is clear that future poli­ti­cal and social uphe­avals can only be even some­what peaceful when one can come to a bet­ter under­stan­ding of cul­tures and reli­gi­ons of the world. With this in mind, the pro­ject “Isla­mic Peace Ethics” aims to iden­ti­fy, with the help of the exam­p­le of the Isla­mic cul­tu­ral cir­cle, the inner-Islamic dis­cour­se and to ques­ti­on its reli­gious, cul­tu­ral and phi­lo­so­phi­cal assumptions.

Muham­mad at the Badr War

The turn towards Islam is brought to the fore, not just through its cur­rent poli­ti­cal actua­li­ty, but also through the spe­ci­fic chall­enge that today Mus­lims are asking them­sel­ves peace ethi­cal ques­ti­ons which can­not be assu­med to be ans­werable in the (as a rule) nor­ma­tively unders­tood tea­chings of the Quran.

A page of an anci­ent Koran manu­script (8-9 century)

On the ques­ti­on of the per­mis­si­bi­li­ty of the deploy­ment of nuclear wea­pons or of dro­nes, for exam­p­le, the­re is not­hing of rele­van­ce to be found in the Koran. How then, are dis­cour­ses on the­se and other simi­lar topics con­duc­ted in the Ara­bic World, in Tur­key, Iran or in South East Asia? In which ways are the dif­fe­rent posi­ti­ons iden­ti­fied in the inner Isla­mic dis­cour­se included: descrip­ti­ve rea­li­ty ana­ly­ses, pre­scrip­ti­ve argu­ments of human reaso­ning or refe­ren­ces to the nor­ma­ti­ve sources of the Koran?

With this back­drop, the pro­ject asks if the Isla­mic world iden­ti­fies with such dis­cour­se about the­se and other ques­ti­ons. Whe­re are the­se dis­cour­se car­ri­ed out – online, in aca­de­mic cir­cles, by the poli­ti­cal eli­te? And which posi­ti­ons can be iden­ti­fied in the­se groups?

Here it is important to recon­s­truct the posi­ti­ons in their inner archi­tec­tu­re and to ask if and how a dia­lo­gue bet­ween diver­gent posi­ti­ons is pos­si­ble or has been attempt­ed? If dia­lo­gue is pos­si­ble, it can be assu­med that the par­ties have some­thing in com­mon? What is this com­mon ground?

Muhammads letzte Predigt
Muhammad’s last sermon

The pro­ject aims to dis­cuss ques­ti­ons of this kind and to pre­sent a con­so­li­da­ted sum­ma­ry of the fin­dings. Ulti­m­ate­ly, it is not about the indi­vi­du­al argu­men­ta­ti­on fin­dings but about an under­stan­ding of the logic of argu­men­ta­ti­on processes.

The pro­ject distin­gu­is­hes its­elf through the con­tri­bu­ti­on of inter­na­tio­nal­ly renow­ned insti­tu­ti­ons and inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry cooperation.

 

The pro­ject has been com­ple­ted. A publi­ca­ti­on is still being finalised.

 

 


Project Supervisor

Dr. Heydar Shadi (till 11/2019)