Discourse of Salamat Hashim On Peace, Jihad, And War: Assessing Its Relevance To Barmm Peace Education

Abstrak

The purpose of this study is to assess and analyze the relevance of Salamat Hashim’s discourse on peace, jihad, and war in Islam to the contemporary initiative of the BARMM to mainstream peace education in government schools. Using content analysis method of research, the researcher found that Salamat Hashim had consistently argued that Islam is a religion of peace, not war. To him, the worldview, ethical system, and law of Islam are all aiming for peace. Thus, Jihad, which is largely misunderstood, distorted, and misrepresented by Western scholars, is relevant in peacebuilding. Jihad is an Islamic dynamic approach to achieving real peace in society. It is an Islamic law jargon that simply means exertion of one’s effort to make the word of Allah supreme, i.e., Islam, the religion of peace. This effort could include, but is not limited to, jihad against social injustice, criminality,
poverty, illiteracy, human rights violations, religious intolerance, the culture of violence and extremism, immoral governance practices like corruption, nepotism, manipulation, and other potential causes of conflict in a community. As for armed jihad or qital, his way of rationalization of its use as the last option of the state toward attaining peace, which should be done to preserve the common interest of the people, like what most of the present governments in the world are doing, indicates his realistic approach to peace. As such, the discourses of Hashim are relevant to the contemporary efforts of the MILF to transform
the movement into a social movement. So, the BARMM can integrate Hashim’s discourses into its peace education curriculum and policy advocacy. But they need to contextualize these discourses into the present reality that they are no longer a rebel group, but already administering a government that is accountable to the Bangsamoro people and the Filipino nation. They have to also anchor their peace education program with the Philippine peace agenda to avoid unnecessary conflict.