Let's face it, war is one of the mainstays of the news. So who knows which war was in the headlines when I wrote this. Because unlike buses, the minute one war has passed by another one will be following on right behind.

All around the world the killing still goes on. Since time began, people have butchered those who have lived alongside them for what must have seemed like a good reason at the time. It's been happening since Cain and Able.

Individuals kill for many reasons, money, power, jealousy and frustration, but mass killing seen from a distance often seems based on very petty differences between very similar parties. Like family feuds, the fiercest wars are fought between those who know each other well, wars between neighbours and former friends, where anger is mixed with a sense of betrayal and the fear of the enemy within. Our own feud has been lethally serious now for over 25 years, and like a family, we often prefer not to acknowledge our problems. So it's not a civil war, it's just the troubles.

The language we use in war is a key part of the way we manage to sustain it. Our side is always defending ourselves against their aggression. We are freedom fighters, they are terrorists. We bundle our enemy up in a name, so we aren't killing individuals with parents and children, like ourselves, just eliminating gooks, or krauts or whatever, like exterminating rats or bugs. Our lives are more precious, and a thousand of theirs won't compensate for the loss of one of ours.

Recognising your opponents similarity and humanity is one of the first requirements for peace. It is also one of the requirements for a just war, a holy war, the muslim Jihad. For the early muslims, Jihad had strict rules. It was only justified in self-defense, or to free others from tyranny, in particular to bring freedom of worship. They were not allowed to kill women, children, old people, or other non-combatants, not allowed to despoil the environment, cut down trees or poison the water, and if the enemy accepted defeat, there was to be no retribution.

The aim was not to capture and own the land, but to achieve and administer impartial justice. Perhaps those who feel they are fighting a just war at the moment should compare their motives and methods to those of Muhammad and his followers 1400 years ago.