Inter religious harmony as a tool in building moral components of the nigerian army: the islamic perspective

Islamic moral values, as a set of attitudes or divine conducts sent to mankind through the Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.), serve as guidance that is binding upon every adherents of the religion (Dansabo, Globalization:64). Studies have, over the years, shown that moral principles require everyone to cultivate justice, honesty, kindness, truthfulness, respect for human life and dignity, respect for other people’s properties and respect for other peoples’ interests etc. everyone is thus cautioned against murder, embezzlement of public fund, bribery, cheating, hatred to mention a few. The spirit of inter-religious harmony among the Nigeria Armed Forces has since been manifested from 2009 to date when the NA began the nationalistic assignment to rid the country and the North-East in particular of the grips of heartless insurgent as well as terrorist groups threatening Nigeria as one indivisible entity. Though, not of an identical religious faith, but members of the Nigeria Armed Forces found no difficulty in blending to pursue a common goal and interest, which is ultimately getting every inch of the country secured. The paper, in line with this backdrop, attempts to answer these questions and other relevant ones in order to unravel the religious harmony, being it tool in building and enhancing moral components of the NA. How does the NA intensify effort with a view to studying and properly understanding the impact of inter-religious harmony among themselves irrespective of language and location? How does the moral values helps build their working capacity and harness the cordial relationship that existed between them for maintaining peace and stability in Nigeria? To what extent does tribalism, religious bigots affect the collective responsibilities of Nigeria Army as well as harm the general security of Nigerians? How to identify and fish out bad eggs in the military service thereby enhancing service delivery? How to demonstrate the distinct nature of inter-religious harmony, discipline and moral values among all ranks in the Nigeria Army? How to weigh between Islamic and western norms and values thereby taking the praise worthy accommodated by Islam and discarding the blame worthy ones? (Muhammad, The Qur’an: 21).To achieve the objectives of the research, the paper adopts analytical phenomenological methodology.

Author: 
Attahir Shehu Mainiyo and Muhammad Sani Abdullahi
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