Ramadhan is a month in which Muslims are commanded to slow down, restrain anger, reflect on conduct and deepen responsibility toward others. Fasting is not merely abstention from food and drink; it is moral discipline.
The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) taught that if someone provokes you while fasting, you should reply, “I am fasting.” The believer is instructed to step away from confrontation rather than escalate it. At the very time when over a billion Muslims are reminded to prioritise peace over aggression, the world once again hears threats of military action. To threaten war as a first resort in any international dispute shows a lack of political intelligence and moral principles.
Ramadhan emphasises charity and empathy. Hunger becomes a shared experience that sharpens awareness of those who live with deprivation permanently. The spiritual logic is simple: when people discipline their appetites, they reduce their capacity for cruelty. When they confront their own vulnerability, they become less inclined to impose suffering on others. War represents the collapse of this discipline. It is the moment when leaders abandon persuasion and revert to coercion, replacing language with force.
Some modern states describe themselves as “civilised.” They speak the language of international law, multilateral institutions and diplomacy. Yet when tensions rise, the reflex response often remains the threat of violence. This is not civilisation but the abandonment of it. The distance between the caveman’s club and the state’s missile is a technical advance, not a moral one. When diplomacy fails, power resorts to harm and in that moment, their talk of civilisation reveals just how thin its veneer really is.
If humanity is serious about calling itself civilised, diplomacy cannot be treated as a public relations ritual performed after threats fail. It must be the primary instrument of conflict resolution. That requires patience, humility and recognition that adversaries have their own interests, fears and internal constraints. Threats do not produce peace; they produce escalation, arms races and cycles of instability that rarely end where they begin.
Ramadhan offers a moral mirror to the wider world. It teaches that restraint is not weakness, that self-control is a form of strength and that peace is not passivity but discipline. The Quranic ethic does not deny conflict but insists that justice and restraint govern human action. Even outside religious belief, this principle should be uppermost.
A world that relies on intimidation as its default language is not progressing; it is regressing. We live in an age of extraordinary scientific knowledge, instant communication and economic interdependence. There is no credible excuse for conducting international relations as though humanity were still living in caves and settling disputes with clubs. If the most powerful states cannot use restraint, dialogue and diplomacy, then their lectures about “civilised values” ring hollow.
Ramadhan reminds us that peace begins with discipline: discipline of speech, of desire and of power. This lesson is not only for Muslims. It is for any society that claims moral maturity. If we continue to reach for threats and war rather than dialogue and compromise, then we are not civilised at all. We are merely well-armed cavemen pretending otherwise.
Karim Easterbrook
The writer is a Former Cambridge School Principal and Author
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
