Religion and Peace

This volume represents a departure from the prevailing emphasis on religion and war in the medieval and early modern periods. Instead, the book explores the relationship between religion and peace in the context of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, both as an ideal and on the practical level. The Introduction, which proposes a holistic model for analysis of violence/nonviolence-peace, provides a framework for understanding the various aspects of peacemaking during the period in question. The topics covered range from religion and diplomacy, peace movements grounded in religious ideals, the Muslim ideal of peace and actual peacemaking, Muslim-Christian treaties in the Latin East, papal policy in the Middle Ages and the twentieth century, the unique role of holy women who were spokeswomen for peace, the internal pursuit of peace in medieval Jewish society, and what fuelled religious tolerance in sixteenth-century Poland. As a whole, these chapters reflect how different societies reacted to and treated the “Other” in the context of peacemaking and overcame the conceptual gap with their ideology that promoted the belief that they possessed the one and only truth. They demonstrate that religion and religious institutions can serve as a positive influence and agents of peace. <p>Introduction <i>Yvonne Friedman </i>1. Violence and Nonviolence/Peace: Introduction to a Holistic Approach <i>Markus Fath </i>2. Religion and Diplomatic Peacemaking in the Middle Byzantine Period <i>Nicolas Drocourt </i>3. The Peace of God: Demotic Millennialism and the Religious Dynamics of the Central Middle Ages <i>Richard Landes </i>4. Learning the Religious Concepts of the "Other": Muslim-Christian Treaties in the Latin East <i>Yvonne Friedman </i>5. Islam as a Peacemaking Religion: Self-Image, Medieval Theory, and Practice <i>Yehoshua Frenkel </i>6. Making Peace with "God’s Enemies": The Muslim Dilemma of Treaty-Making with Christians in the Medieval Levant <i>Betty Binysh </i>7. Pursuit of Peace in the Service of War: Papal Policy, 1198-1334 <i>Sophia Menache </i>8. Holy Women as Spokeswomen for Peace in Late Medieval Europe <i>Esther Cohen </i>9. The Pursuit of Peace in Medieval Judaism <i>Daniel Roth </i>10. The Development of Religious Tolerance in Poland: From the Medieval Period to the Reformation <i>Paweł Kras </i>Epilogue: Theology of Forgiveness and Peace: Christian Culture of Peace in the Roman Catholic Church after Vatican II <i>Bernard Ardura</i></p>