Global peace and security can be established and guaranteed through peaceful coexistence of all nations. All heavenly religions and divine prophets promote monotheism, call to peace and security, urge respect for the followers of all religions, and in this way, try for the salvation of humanity. With the passing of time, as the distance between the founding fathers of religion and the believers in that region gradually grows, slight deviations begin to appear. One important deviation we have witnessed in the history of religions is the growth of dogmatism as the result of which some people overlook the principle of peaceful coexistence. Historically speaking, some Jews and Christians fell in the pitfall. They ended up in a disastrous racism that ignited bloody wars with thousands of victims and casualties. The history of Jewish racism is darker. Not only did some Jews believe they were chosen by God exclusively as the elected nation, but they also demanded the subordination of other nations to them. Racial discrimination in contrast with human rights dates back to far past. Since its advent, Islam struggled against this tendency. Declaring peaceful coexistence of all followers of religions as a principal value, Islam issued its human charter 14 centuries ago stressing the common grounds among people of different faiths. The political and social life of the holy Prophet and His Immaculate Successors indicate that tolerance, moderation, and gentleness are the three leading principles in interaction with people.

There are different kinds of legal conventions and treaties acknowledged by Islamic Law. This division is based either on the typology of the parties to the convention/treaty, the essential characteristic features of the convention/treaty, or its duration. Islamic Jurisprudence recognizes four distinct kinds of treaties described and delimited exactly and in length titled “the pledge of charge”, “peace treaty”, “the pledge of protection by individual Muslims” and “arbitration treaty”.

By nature, man is a social creature. To meet his needs, he has to live in society. As the population of the earth grows, human needs augment. This may lead to crashes of interest. Experience has taught human beings that they can achieve their ends better in a peaceful and cooperative atmosphere. From the two bloody and devastating world wars in the 20th century, humanity learned a great lesson: efforts must be put into promotion of friendly relations and cessation of hostilities. Since then, a new term was introduced to political literature; peaceful coexistence. It was promoted to a high legal status gradually appearing in international legal documents though not in UN Human Charter. In this paper, we investigate the status of this notion in international law and Islamic view. We shall confine our discussion to central essential issues to cope with the limitations of this work.

The holy Koran calls all religions “Islam”. The religions Abraham, Noah, Moses, Jesus, and other apostles brought to people are all named Islam in the Koran. This indicates that there is a common nucleus all these religions share. That is why the Koran demands from Muslims to believe in all the messages these prophets carried to mankind. Religious peaceful coexistence is a genuine Islamic ideal reiterated by several Koranic verses in different ways. This was done at a time when humanity had no idea of existence let alone religious coexistence. The holy Koran denounces religious conflict and forbids resorting to violence on account of differences of opinion and beliefs as is unfortunately seen in the history of the Crusades. It is irreligious to promote hatred towards the followers of other religions or insult them just because they adopt a different faith. The Koran reproaches a group of Christian and Jewish people who mock one another, call one another infidels, disregard human rights on the basis of religious difference, and Keep the inferno of war and conflict burning: “The Jews said Christians believe in nothing worth believing in and the Christians said Jews believe in nothing worth believing in while both of them recited the Bible; ignorant people also said the same; so, Allah will judge them about their dispute on the day of judgment”. The holy Koran proposes the following recommendations to guarantee a peaceful coexistence among the followers of various religions.

In Semitic religions, the boundaries between believers and infidels are so strictly drawn that no room is left for religious pluralism and tolerance. In the case of Islam, the recent decades witnessed extremist activities of militant fundamentalist Muslims the world over portraying an absolutist, dogmatic, and prejudiced picture of the Islamic faith. However, as most authentic source for Muslims, the Koran draws a different picture of Islam. It is not an exaggeration to say that Islam is open to religious diversity more than any other religion is. The God of Islam is not absolutist, respects other religious folks, and calls Muslims to tolerance and cooperation the followers of other religions. In this paper, we try to focus on those verses of the Koran that contain the ideal of religious tolerance and enjoin peaceful coexistence with nonbelievers or followers of other creeds. The approach Islam adopts to non-Muslims can be inferred from the Koranic verses that emphasize the following precepts:

Human beings are born as social creatures; they depend on one another for their life. Coexistence and relationship are vital to human life. It is only in society that human beings can meet their needs, enhance their quality of life, and develop their skills and capacities. Human survival depends on coexistence and due to this need people are prepared to enter into contracts and social treaties with one another and care to respect their commitments.

Peace and security depends on peaceful coexistence among peoples undoubtedly. The vital importance of this fact makes it beneficial to study how the three world live religions of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism approach this issue. All Divine religions and messengers of God invite to peace, security, and philanthropy. This implies respectful behavior towards the followers of different religions. With the passing of time, however, some followers of Divine religions have gradually gone astray as the result of getting distanced from godly leadership. They have tended to ignore the principle of coexistence among the followers of Divine creeds under the influence of alien nations. This applies to some Jews and some Christians who have opted for some sort of racism. Bloody wars were waged as the result and a great number of innocent people lost their lives. This phenomenon is more striking in the case of Jews whose behavior proves to be contrary to international norms and standards. The sense of racial superiority among some Jews has led them to believe that non-Jews are intended to serve the Jewish nation. On the contrary, Islam considers the peaceful coexistence among believers in different faiths as a genuine value. The verse no. 64 of Sura Al-i Imran is the universal declaration of tolerance by Islam: “Say, O people of the book, let us unite on the axis of a common precept; to worship God alone.” The practice of the holy Prophet and immaculate Imams, too, witnesses to their adherence to the principle of tolerance and friendship.

The verses of the holy Koran and The tradition of the holy Prophet of Islam emphasize the principle of religious coexistence. There are three sets of Koranic verses enjoining religious coexistence; those verses that condemn compulsory conversion, those encouraging kind treatment of non-Muslims, and those inviting to peaceful coexistence among followers of different religions. History tells us the holy Prophet and His successors treated the Christians and Jews of the time with compassion and kindness establishing non-aggression treaties with them guaranteeing freedom of faith and the right to own temples of their own and reconstruct them. In Islamic culture, ideas such as respect for thought and intellectual debate, refusal of religious dogmatism, and abolishment of ethnic and tribal discrimination as well as propagation of humanism, peace, love, liberty, and knowledge by Muslim philosophers and thinkers and mystics contributed to the establishment of peaceful coexistence among followers of different faiths. In this paper, we try to show how Muslim mystics advanced the ideal of religious peaceful coexistence through introduction of the notion of universal harmony that traces the roots of prejudiced disagreement back to the state of being distanced from God and spirituality and neglecting the ethics the holy Prophet preached.