ABSTRACT
Militant groups, in the name of Islam, continue to threaten peace and security in the Western and Muslim worlds. Pakistan is one of the countries that suffers most from the attacks of these groups. Mossarat Qadeem, a Muslim woman in Pakistan, founded the PAIMAN Alumni Trust (PAIMAN), a national organization working at the grassroots level, to address radicalization and extremist violence, and also to build peace in the conflict-ridden regions of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). This chapter explores how PAIMAN, empowered by Islam, works to address extremist violence in Pakistan. It considers: religion as a community, which explores how Muslim identity provides women with credibility and legitimacy to resolve conflicts and build peace; religion as practice, which examines how PAIMAN assists women and youth impacted by violence and conflict in Pakistan by engaging and supported them, and religion as a set of teachings, which describes how Islamic values inform their work.
