Kenneth Oldmeadow and Rodney Blackhirst
The peace of Islam is the “peace that surpasseth understanding”, not a secular or sentimental peace. Islam is in the world to remind us that our destiny will not be fulfilled in a false peace, and that there will be strife in the world for as long as men cleave to counterfeit absolutes. We can never be satisfied with a false peace, any more than false worship can ever satisfy our souls. Islam is a militant and uncompromising spirituality that insists upon this. More than other spiritual orders it addresses the problem of warfare. It finds warfare a constant in the human condition and wisely attempts to regulate it, direct it to noble ends and, finally, internalize it, making it an agent of self-transformation according to the well-known distinction between the lesser or outer Holy War (jihad) and the greater or inner Holy War, the war against the most pernicious of all counterfeit absolutes, the self.
