Religious traditions aim to provide adherents a coherent and framed understanding of peace, to embark on an individual journey into achieving world peace. While doing so, this empowers individuals to effectively strive for ‘potential of religions to foster true peace’ within everyday life. Christianity and Islam effectively provide a deep understanding of world peace for their individuals by outlining how peace is accomplished, and when peace is accomplished it contributes to the achievement of world peace. Within Christianity, peace is a gift from God that is the involvement of adherents to commit themselves to grow and develop a relationship with God. Throughout the Christian community, adherents seek to live out the teachings of peace demonstrated in ‘The Bible’ and significant people such as ‘Pope Francis’. Whereas, in Islam Allah exists as the fundamental manifestation of peace, thus to experience this peace, adherents must entirely submit themselves to will of Allah by embarking with obligatory Islamic practices and to serve Allah. The Islamic community learn and utilize the ‘Qur’an’ to achieve inner peace, where-as Malala Yousafzai provides a ‘greater tolerance and solidarity among all groups’ to serve through justice. Ultimately, religious traditions are favourably effective in providing understandings of peace ‘to reaffirm our common humanity’ to be able to contribute to achieve world peace.
A distinct understanding of world peace is provided to adherents within Christianity, is a gift from God that is experienced when an adherent devotes themselves to the fulfilment of God’s will. By avoiding the practice of an active Christian life, adherents will subsequently be unable to experience a sense of personal inner peace, leading to a lack of world peace. Jesus in the New Testament provides Christians a model of how to live in peace such as “Love your neighbour and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). As a result, adherents are encouraged to replicate these actions to personally embody such peacefulness. Principle teachings such as Peace in relationships enables Christians to be encouraged to forgive one another, to respect one another, to act with love towards each other and avoid selfish moments. The Catholic Social Teaching Organisation (CSTO) is the official overseas development agency of the Catholic Church, that use peace in relationships to help benefit world peace. CSTO believe peace can only come about when we learn to treat each other as brothers and sisters and recognise our shared vocation as children of God. Christianity is effective in teaching the understandings of peace, specifically during the Saturday/ Sunday worship, where adherents will listen to the Gospel, observe Jesus’ life, to the listen to the homily, to implement the actions of Jesus within in their own lives. Such as the Eucharist which is an example of peace. Within (John 12:27) he tells us about peace is bestowed upon us by God “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” As such, this is “reaffirm our common humanity” to give earthly peace to express a way of life. These are fundamental teachings of Pax Christi. Pax Christi in Australia is part of a global Catholic peace movement dedicated to achieving peace, respect for human rights and justice, and reconciliation. Their beliefs consist of “Mercy and truth, Justice and peace have embraced, the integrity of creation is celebrated in freedom.” Ultimately, world peace is achieved “call on … religious leaders and people of faith to confront hostility” to create harmonious union between mind and body.
Adherents within Islam, in attempting to follow the “Foster true peace” of God, are taught to constantly submit to the will of “O soul at peace, return unto the Lord” (Surah 89:28) Allah by actively engaging in distinctive Islamic ethical teachings and practices which allows one to gain a sense of world peace. Further, it is the extent to which one submits themselves to the will of Allah throughout life that determines their sense of happiness, tranquillity and inner peace. Fundamentally, in submitting to Allah, the ultimate manifestation and source of all, adherents must combat the Greater Jihad (the inner struggle against sin) which allows them to attain inner peace and experience “the tranquillity of heart” (Surah 48:4). The distinctive Islamic belief in the five pillars, allows adherents to fulfil obligatory practices throughout life and cement their submission to Allah. The submission to the will pf Allah teachers that this level of inner peace granted in life will be complete once full obedience to Gods will. To fully submit “Anyone who disobeys Allah and His messenger has wandered off into manifest error” – (33:36), you must be guided by Allah’s way of peace to reach the goal of world peace. Malala Yousafzai manifests true submission to the will of Allah. She has helped achieve world peace by inspiring others “How can we do that? You were the one who said that if we believe in something greater than our lives, then our voices will only multiply ever if we are dead. We can’t disown our campaign!” Using her multiple tragedies, she has empowered others to “confront hostility” and to educate future generations. Ultimately, Islamic adherents find peace by submitting to Allah to underlie their distinctive understandings of peace require them to actively submit to Allah’s will “foster[ing] true peace” by following Islamic law, using ethical teachings and participating in significant practises in everyday life.
Christianity’s distinct understanding regarding world peace, is founded upon the central belief “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful (Colossians 3:15) as Jesus is seen to be a sign of peace sent from God. Christian Pacifism is to aim was to bring peace to individuals, communities and the world. Central to the development of world peace is the teaching of (God’s unconditional love for humanity). Christianity teaches its adherents that they have a social responsibility to pursue peace within their communities through relationships that incorporate forgiveness, reconciliation and justice. Quakers believe that everyone has a direct connection with God, which some call the 'inner light' or ‘Spirit'. Quaker believes peace through their own path. The main goal is to raise world-wide awareness and to spark inter-religious dialogue that addresses the brutal conflict occurring in Syria and to promote world peace. However, Christians believe that in certain situations violence may be employed to challenge a greater evil. Jesus Christ clearly highlights this in Mt 10:34 for “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil” (Matt 5:17). This reflects Christianity’s proposed ‘Just war theory’, a doctrine that the circumstances in which violence is justified as a last cause of action. Pope Pius stating that “nothing is lost by peace but everything may be lost by war” negates the notion idea of a just war and solely calls for world-wide unity and peace through the “love your enemies” (Mt 5:5). Further, the Quaker’s interprets Jesus’ teachings and as such, have established a direct connection with God which promotes the entire legalisation of nation-wide nuclear disarmament to ensure peaceful global action within the future.
Islam effectively provides a distinct understanding regarding how adherents can “foster” world peace, however, such teachings can only be enacted when adherents live an Islamic life submitted to Allah. Essentially, in striving to entirely serve Allah, adherents must additionally struggle against the Lesser Jihad to foster peace on earth. Allah, “the most gracious, and most merciful” (1:1 Surah al-Fatiha), exists as the ultimate manifestation of peace. Therefore, in everyday life, adherents are called to act with mercy and compassion to spread Allah’s peace throughout the world. Additionally, adherents are called to “Seek help with prayer – though this is hard indeed for anyone but the humble, who know that they will meet their Lord and unto him they will return” (2:45) an obligation fulfilled in the five pillars of faith, especially the charitable actions of Salat, Muslims for peace devote that the Holy Qur’an has not taken away rights of even such mortal enemies. However, some adherents are further driven to bring peace to society by establishing programs that focus on aiding the Umma (Islamic community), an example being Muslim Peace Fellowship (MPF) “religious leaders and people of faith to confront hostility”, is what they will accomplish in order to achieve world peace. Inner and world peace are ideals that are inextricably linked, witnessed in the Hadith suggesting that “My mercy encompasses all things, but I will specify it for the righteous (7:156) however the rise of radical interpretations of Islam and the subsequent acts of terror, Islamic adherents have attempted to maintain peaceful relationships with others in greater society. Ultimately, Islam is the greatness of Allah whilst bringing adherents closer to Allah.
Ultimately, both Christianity and Islam provide a distinctive understanding of inner and world peace for their adherents by outlining how peace is attained and what such peace achieves. Within Christianity, peace is a gift from God that is experienced when adherents commit themselves to developing a relationship with God and those in their wider community. Whereas, in Islam, Allah is peace and the source of all peace, as such, on must fully submit to Allah’s will to gain inner peace and deliver world peace to their communities. Furthermore, “[to] pave the way for greater tolerance and solidarity among all groups” adherents can achieve world peace if “religions .. foster true peace.”