A Study on the Principality of Peace in the Scripture and Tradition with a Critical Approach toward the Interpretations of the Holy Scriptures in Middle Ages

While studying Islam and the historical character of the Prophet (S.A.W.), many of the Western thinkers and Islamologists have concluded that Islam and the Prophet (S.A.W.) have carried out their mission through wars and violence and followed their objectives through wielding swords. It could be said, however, that this kind of impression about the mode of the Prophet’s (S.A.W.) foreign affairs is more a reflection of legal reasoning and interpretation of the Middle Ages scholars than the Prophet’s (S.A.W.) political conduct and discourse. In these interpretations, the interpreters have unconsciously superimposed the spatio-temporal exigencies of their own age on the Holy Scriptures, which in some instances resulted in some equivocations in understanding the real intentions of the Scriptures. In addition to the impressionability from historical straits faced by interpreters, the interpretations and legal reasoning have also been subject to the political demands of the caliphs and rulers of the Islamic Middle Ages, because in a short while after the demise of the Prophet (S.A.W.), tendency toward conquest of other lands demanded theoretical and intra-textual pretexts from the Scripture and tradition. To fulfill this political need, the theoreticians affiliated to caliphate have fabricated some hadith and traditions concerning preemptive jihad as per the case. Along the same line, using the lever of abrogation and with a selective look at the Qur’an, they also invalidated the verses of peace and tolerance that were in contrast to the spirit of conquests.