The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues, The Cordoba Foundation, Islamic Relief Worldwide and Salam Institute for Peace and Justice invite you to a meeting that will focus on addressing the Islamic traditions of conflict transformation and peacebuilding.
Date and Time: Tuesday 22 January 2013; 6.30pm-8.30pm
Venue: Committee Room 10, House of Commons
Chair
Andy Slaughter MP
Throughout the world’s most volatile regions, academics and practitioners are proposing that novel approaches to peacebuilding should now incorporate indigenous and local cultural methods of interventions and analysis into the systematic ‘Western’ models being employed.
Islam as a religion and a tradition is replete with teachings and practices of nonviolence and peacebuilding. Since its formative years, Muslim communities have been empowered by various Islamic values and principles of peace. Nevertheless, since the September 11 attacks of 2001, a large number of studies have ignored the Islamic tradition of peace and nonviolence and focused mainly on Islamic fundamentalism and recent emergence of radical Islamic movements.
So how do Muslim men and women resolve their conflicts peacefully and establish just social, political and economic systems?
Speakers
Prof Mohamed Abu Nimer is professor in International Peace and Conflict Resolution at the American University’s School of International Service in Washington DC, and Director of the Salaam Institute for Peace and Justice. He is an expert in conflict resolution and dialogue for peace. As a practitioner, he has conducted conflict resolution training workshops and intervened in many conflict areas around the world including: Palestine, Israel, Egypt, Northern Ireland, Philippines (Mindanao), Sri Lanka and the US. His list of publications include Interfaith Peacebuilding and Dialogue in the Middle East: From Sacred to Political; Nonviolence and Peacebuilding in Islam:Theory and Practice; Reconciliation, Coexistence, and Justice:Theory and Practice.
Dr Qamar ul Huda is a scholar of Islam and Senior Program Officer in the Religion and Peacemaking Centre at the US Institute of Peace. His area of expertise is Islamic theology, intellectual history, ethics, comparative ethics, the language of violence, conflict resolution and non-violence in contemporary Islam. His edited USIP book, The Crescent and Dove: Peace and Conflict Resolution in Islam, provides a critical analysis of models of nonviolent strategies, peace-building and conflict resolution in Muslim communities. His research is on comparative Sunni-Shi’ite interpretations of social justice, ethics and dialogue, and how the notion of justice is used and appropriated. Dr Huda is the author of Striving for Divine Union: Spiritual Exercises for Suhrawardi Sufis.
Dr S Ayse Kadayifci-Orellana is a founding member and the Associate Director of Salam Institute for Peace and Justice. She is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the field of Peace and Conflict Resolution at the School of International Service at American University, Washington DC. In addition to teaching, lecturing and publishing extensively, Dr Kadayifci-Orellana has facilitated dialogues and conflict resolution workshops between Israelis and Palestinian; conducted Islamic conflict resolution training workshops with imams and Muslim youth leaders in the United States, Saudi Arabia and Sudan; organised and participated in interfaith and intra-Muslim dialogues; and was part of the first American-Muslim delegation to Iran in November 2012.
spaces Limited!! Please click here to RSVP
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Secretariat, APPG on Conflict Issues
www.conflictissues.org.uk
The Secretariat to the APPGCI is provided by Engi, a social venture that aims to further effective, non-violent conflict management by strengthening links between peace-building and Parliament, government, civil society and the private sector. www.engi.org.uk
