What is it about?
Religious extremism in Pakistan is a serious and persistent problem, and one of its most dangerous features is the way extremist groups use selected Qur'anic verses to justify violence, exclusion, and the declaration that fellow Muslims are apostates or enemies. This paper argues that the most effective response to this misuse of scripture is not to avoid the Qur'an but to engage it more carefully and honestly. By examining the Qur'an's core teachings on justice, mercy, forgiveness, human dignity, reconciliation, and restraint, the paper shows that Islamic scripture contains a rich and coherent ethic of peacebuilding that directly challenges extremist interpretations. The paper also looks at how mainstream Pakistani Islamic scholars — from a range of traditions and orientations — have consistently opposed terrorism and unjustifiable violence, and have argued for contextual and responsible understandings of contested concepts like jihad. It concludes by showing how these Qur'anic ethics can be put to practical use in schools, mosques, communities, and national policy to build a credible and culturally rooted counter-narrative to extremism in Pakistan.
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Why is it important?
Counter-extremism efforts in Pakistan and elsewhere have often relied heavily on security, surveillance, and legal measures. While these have their place, they frequently fail to address the ideological and religious dimensions of extremism — the arguments that actually persuade people and justify violence in the minds of those who commit it. This paper makes an important contribution by engaging directly with those arguments on their own ground, demonstrating from within the Islamic textual tradition that the Qur'an does not support the violence, exclusion, and takfir that extremists promote. What makes this paper particularly valuable is its dual focus: it is both a careful textual analysis of Qur'anic peacebuilding ethics and an empirical examination of how Pakistani Islamic scholars across different schools of thought have articulated these ethics in their public discourse. This combination means the paper is not simply offering an idealized reading of scripture in isolation but showing that a peacebuilding interpretation of the Qur'an is already present and active in Pakistani religious life. Scholars of Islamic ethics, religion and violence, South Asian politics, and counter-extremism studies will find this paper directly relevant, as will policymakers, educators, and religious leaders working on preventing violent extremism in Muslim-majority contexts.
Perspectives
I wrote this paper out of a deep conviction that the way we frame the problem of religious extremism has enormous consequences for how we try to solve it. If we treat extremism as something foreign to Islam — an aberration imported from outside — we miss the real battle, which is always fought over the interpretation of shared texts and shared traditions. And if we cede that interpretive battle to extremists by refusing to engage with Islamic sources seriously, we leave the most powerful arguments on the table. What gives me hope — and what I hope comes through in this paper — is that the Qur'anic resources for peacebuilding are not marginal or obscure. They are central, repeated, and deeply embedded in the tradition. Justice, mercy, human dignity, the prohibition of corruption and oppression — these are not minor themes in Islamic scripture. They are foundational. And Pakistani scholars, often working in difficult and even dangerous circumstances, have been making these arguments clearly and courageously for years. I hope this paper helps amplify those voices and contributes to building the kind of religiously grounded, culturally credible counter-narrative that security measures alone can never provide. Extremism will not be defeated by force alone. It will be defeated, ultimately, by better arguments — and those arguments are already there, waiting to be heard.
Dr. Jamil Akhtar
University of the Punjab
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Qur’anic Ethics for Peacebuilding: An Islamic Counter-Narrative to Religious Extremism in Pakistan, Al-Qamar, March 2026, Al-Qamar Islamic Research Institute,
DOI: 10.53762/alqamar.09.01.e02.
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