The concept of peace in Islamic ontological sources

Recently, Islam has been increasingly associated with violence and terrorism by some circles and it is claimed that Islam is a warlike religion. Those who make this claim argue that Islam divides the world into dār al ḥarb and dār al Islam, and humanity into Muslims and infidels, and that it has to be a warrior religion in order to make the whole world dār al Islam and to Islāmize all people. Therefore, this study aims to reveal Islam's understanding of peace by analyzing the vocabulary of peace used by the Qur'an and the Sunnah, the main sources of knowledge in Islam, through semantic analysis. Since the Qur'an and the Sunnah are binding sources for all Muslims, the study is limited to the Qur'an and the Sunnah. In the study, the semantic analysis method developed by Toshihiko Izutsu on the semantics of the Qur'an and accepted as a very reliable method by the related circles was applied in order to see the origin of the words used in these sources, their meanings before Islam, how Islam used these words and to reveal the worldview of Islam on this subject. For this purpose, the words silm/salām and ṣulḥ, which are the most prominent among the words used in the meaning of peace, have been analyzed together with their roots and derivatives, other words with synonyms and antonyms, and finally their usage in the Qur'an and the Sunnah. The meanings expressed by these words were grouped and the framework of the concept of peace was determined. After that, the peace expressed by these concepts in the Qur'an and the Sunnah has been analyzed at individual, societal, state and international levels. As a result of these studies, it has been seen that the words used by Islam in the sense of peace have a very wide framework of meaning. The analyzed S-L-M root and the words silm/salām have a comprehensive meaning such as reconciliation, agreement, being free from deficiency and danger, being firm, surrendering, obeying, consenting, trusting, and being safe. The other analyzed Ṣ-L-Ḥ root and the word ṣulḥ, on the other hand, have a framework of meaning that includes important dimensions of peace such as being good, being useful, being honest, eliminating mischief, being reforming, reconciling those who are in disagreement, making peace, agreeing. With these concepts, it has been determined that Islam does not see peace as the end of conflicts between countries, on the contrary, it follows a path starting from the individual, family, society, state and finally world peace. Keywords: Islam, Qur'an, Peace, Mischief, Amends