Nonviolence and Religion

Dear Colleagues,

Contemporary research addresses mainly religion and violence. This special issue starts the other way around and looks first at human violence in order to investigate religious potentials to strengthen the case for nonviolence. Contributions that take human violence as its starting point may engage with it from a biological, anthropological, psychological or historical perspective. Regarding nonviolence and religion, a key example is the Indian lawyer and political ethicist Mohandas K. Gandhi whose concept of satyagraha was influenced by his own Hindu tradition but drew also on Jainism, Christianity and Islam. Gandhi’s thinking will be discussed in depth by investigating its historical development, its use of ancient authoritative texts, its contribution to interreligious dialogue, its relation to gender, its relevance for our world of today, and its limits. This special issue invites researchers to discuss similar religious thinkers and activists who engaged in nonviolence from their own religious backgrounds. Possible examples – without excluding those who are not explicitly mentioned here – are the African American minister and activist Martin Luther King, the peace and human rights activist Abraham Joshua Heschel, Gandhi’s friend and Muslim pacifist Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the Islamic scholar Jawdat Said and the Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee. Contributions are also welcome that focus on how different religions or confessions have related to nonviolence historically. Has nonviolence become more important in recent decades? Does nonviolence play a role in interreligious dialogue?

Prof. Dr. Louise du Toit
Prof. Dr. emer. Ephraim Meir
Prof. Dr. Ed Noort
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Palaver
Guest Editors

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