It is frequently claimed that religion is at the heart of all the conflicts in the world. This belief is a major factor in turning people away from institutional religion. Often, however, it is the behavior of zealots on the fringes of the faiths that is at the root of the problem. The majority of believers maintain that it is “bad religion” that causes conflict. “Good religion” is generally opposed to war, as the sacred scriptures make plain. And amongst those faiths that allow that in some circumstances war can be justified, the list of situations in which this applies has grown shorter and shorter with the development of modern means of combat and weapons of mass destruction.
Some traditions embrace non-violence totally. The Buddhist scriptures advise: “In times of war, give rise in yourself to the mind of compassion, helping living beings abandon the will to fight.” The Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama (exiled since the Chinese annexed his homeland, and the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize), continually demonstrates in word and deed Buddha’s commitment to peace with his non-violent approach to the Chinese.
Ahimsa Others religions are more ambiguous. Hinduism condemns the violence of war in a tenet known by the Sanskrit word ahimsa—“do no violence.” (The concept is shared with Buddhism and Jainism, though their understanding of it is slightly different.) Yet at the same time, high up in the Hindu caste system are the Kshatriyas, the warrior caste. Equally, though Guru Nanak promoted peace, and many modern Sikhs are pacifists, Sikhism has over the centuries responded to the aggression of others who would deny it freedom to worship by producing accomplished soldiers.
The right to self-defense
Many Buddhists refuse to take up arms, even to defend their own lives. Monks may use martial arts for self-defense, but can never kill another human being. In Buddhism a story is shared from the Vietnam War (1959–75). The celebrated Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh (nominated by Martin Luther King in 1967 for the Nobel Peace Prize) was challenged about his commitment throughout the conflict to non-violence. “What if someone had wiped out all the Buddhists in the world and you were the last one left. Would you not try to kill the person who was trying to kill you, and in doing so save Buddhism?” Thich Nhat Hanh replied: “It would be better to let him kill me. If there is any truth to Buddhism and the dharma, it will not disappear from the face of the Earth, but will reappear when seekers of truth are ready to rediscover it. In killing I would be betraying and abandoning the very teachings I would be seeking to preserve. So it would be better to let him kill me and remain true to the spirit of the dharma.”
In trying to square the circle of being essentially peace-loving with retaining the capacity to repel aggressors, Sikhism drew up a set of principles for a “just war” known as the Dharam Yudh. To be legitimate, a conflict must be: (1) the last resort after all other means have failed; (2) not motivated by revenge or enmity; (3) pursued with minimum force and without looting or harming civilians; and (4) concluded by all property taken, including annexed territories, being returned.
“No one is my enemy
No one is a foreigner
With all I am at peace
God within us renders us
Incapable of hate and prejudice.”
Guru Nanak
Just war Such checklists are common. In the Rig Veda, Hinduism lays down criteria for soldiers to behave morally in conflict. They must not poison the tip of their arrow, target the sick, the old, women and children, or attack from behind. Christianity too has a formulation for a “just war.”
In the New Testament, Jesus gives differing messages about whether it can ever be right to resort to violence to solve conflicts. In Matthew’s gospel (5:39), he warns: “I say this to you: offer the wicked man no resistance. On the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer the other as well.” But this pacifist impulse is checked later (Luke 22:36) when he tells his followers: “But now, if you have a purse take it; if you have a haversack, do the same; if you have no sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”
In The City of God (426 CE), St. Augustine set out the Christian theory about just war. The aggression being confronted must be “lasting, grave, and certain.” All other means to stop it must have failed. There must be serious prospects of success. And finally the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.
“Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of the world.”
Pope John Paul II, 2003
While in the past these criteria have been used to endorse campaigns of aggression that sought both to annex land and to force conversions—for example, the Crusades—today the presumption in modern Catholicism is against war. Some theologians argue that the advent of nuclear arsenals with huge destructive power makes it impossible for the final criterion for a just war ever to be met. Pope Paul VI, in an historic address to the United Nations in 1965, appealed: “war no more, war never again!” while Pope John Paul II condemned the first Gulf War in 1991 on no fewer than 56 separate occasions, later describing the 2003 invasion of Iraq as “a defeat for humanity.”
The just war in Islam
Many Muslims object to contemporary assumptions about Islam as fundamentally warlike and unconcerned about the consequences of conflict for the innocent. Such a picture has been widespread since the deaths of almost 3,000 people in the destruction of the Twin Towers in 2001 by Islamic fanatics. Mainstream Muslims deny that uninhibited violence is part of their history and point to a longer tradition within Islam of reluctance in embarking on warfare, and of humanity in its conduct. When Saladin recaptured Jerusalem from Christian Crusaders in 1187, he found that a number of holy Muslim places had been violated, yet he forbade acts of vengeance. Those residents of the city who were caught up in the battle were taken prisoner, but released on the payment of a token ransom.
Islam Perhaps the most scrutinized of the religious traditions in relation to war of late has been Islam, as a result of terrorist atrocities carried out by Islamic extremists. Islam does allow war for “noble” motives, namely self-defense and to protect oppressed Muslims in another country. It insists that non-combatants should not be injured, and that the minimum necessary force be used, with humane treatment of prisoners of war. All of these teachings are based on passages in the Qur’an and on Muhammad’s own conduct.
There is dispute, however, over the so-called “sword verses” of the Qur’an, which permit war only in self-defense and never as a means of spreading Islam. Some radical thinkers argue that the perceived hostility that Islam faces in the modern world, especially from the West, demands self-defense. Whatever the case, the Qur’an teaches that there can be no earthly reward for warfare. If it has been fought for the right reasons, Allah will judge, and the reward will be in heaven.
the condensed idea
War can rarely if ever be justified today
| timeline | |
|---|---|
| c.1500 BCE | Rig Veda on soldiers’ morality |
| 426 | Augustine on just war |
| 1187 | Saladin spares his prisoners |
| 17th century | Sikh Dharam Yudh |
| 1965 | Paul VI, “No More War” |