As citizens of this macro-reality, we can often feel as if we are but pawns in the vast global chess game being played by multinational corporations, traditional superpowers, new and emerging nuclear powers, and the economic pushbuttons of development and consumer capitalism. Within such a world, some may find it difficult to believe that our individual choices can make a difference in our communities. So what if a few dozen or even a few hundred people in our city get together for an interfaith meal? So what if families from different cultures living together in a town get to know each other? What difference does it make in the end? Political powers and other forces call the larger shots and will send us all into war and conflict if they so desire. Human nature being what it is, we will succumb to our baser instincts in hard times no matter how many positive interfaith or intercultural experiences we’ve had with others.

Critics of interfaith dialogue often make this case. They point to examples from Bosnia, the Middle East, Kashmir, Punjab, Rwanda and elsewhere to illustrate that people who coexist peacefully for centuries can be manipulated into barbarically killing each other relatively quickly. Tyrants, insurgents and other power-seekers have learned that cultural, ethnic, and/or religious differences can form natural fault lines in a given communal fabric, which can be exploited by skillful media messaging and the opportunistic staging of current events into powerfully persuasive political theater. Once the mass media have been harnessed, if not outright hijacked, power seekers can move populations as if mountains – whipping up mass fear, anger, hysteria and eventually an appetite for genocide.

Interfaith dialogue seems no match for these gargantuan modern monstrosities. And, in many cases, it isn’t. The warmly felt bonds of interfaith harmony that thrive in times of relative peace and prosperity chill easily in times of strife and hardship, especially when political, economic or national security interests are at stake. In such times, usually all but a few individuals will succumb to fear, and then retreat to their respective religio-ethnic corners to prepare for a fight. The individuals who maintain their commitment to peaceful coexistence with their neighbors resist the fight, try to save their friends who have suddenly become “the enemy” because of their religion or ethnicity, and often lose their lives in the process. They may be heroes, to be sure, but they are dead. And they do not win in the end; the warmongers do – at least, most of the time.

But not all the time. Occasionally, we find exceptions to this all too common trajectory in human socio-political relations. Situations wherein populations held themselves together despite enormous pressures to fight and kill one another. Where community leaders resisted the gravitational pull of hatred that strips them of their voices and replaces them with those of fear mongers and peddlers of hatred. When we find these exceptions, we must review and analyze the exact conditions that made them possible in the first place, and determine if they can be replicated in other situations of strife and war.

I encountered such an exceptional situation this past spring while visiting Croatia. Fuzine is one of several quaint mountain villages in the district of Gorski Kotar in northern end of the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. I recently listened to the former governor of the district and a local radio producer tell their stories from the period of the war in 1991.

A Yugoslavian Army base camp was built near the district, on top of a hill. Normally, the existence of this base would have been the beginning of the end for peaceful relations between the Croat and Serbian villages of the district. Croats would view the base as a danger and a provocation, as well as a support camp to the Serbian villages. The Serbians, for their part, would have used the base as a “back-up” for their own violence against their Croat neighbors. Since violence begets violence, Croats or Serbs would make the first strike and the cycle would begin. Many would die, the villages would be destroyed, and the resulting “life” would resemble existence on the surface of the moon.

That’s not what happened.

In a stunning turn of events, the municipal leaders of all the villages – Serb and Croat – approached the base commanders and established a relationship with them. After several meetings, it became clear that none of them wanted either to shoot at each other or to be shot. So, they made a written agreement that constituted the “terms” of their coexistence during those months. For example, when the Yugoslav army was required to fire on the villages, per orders from up the chain of command, they warned the citizens ahead of time and instructed them on how to survive the barrage. They provided the citizens with maps of the mines they laid. The village leaders returned the favor and provided base commanders with a “heads up” when they were forced, by public opinion and the radical fringe, to fire on the army base. The local radio producer treated the army base as another “village” in the district and reported its news, events, and played music for the troops, etc. They called the families of wounded guards to apologize – and did so publicly on the radio – when radical elements in their midst broke the agreement and fired on the soldiers. Media reports stayed ahead of the rumor mills, reported the facts of things, and controlled the message to minimize the inflammatory impact of the angry rhetoric coming from other sources.

As a result of the extraordinary bravery and commitment from people on both sides, no one from the district was killed and no one was taken to a wartime prison camp.

Leaders on both sides suffered consequences. Two of the base commanders went to prison for 12 years. One of them disappeared into the mists of “the system” while the other was killed by civilians after being released. The radio producer in Gorski Kotar was banned from media and only recently has begun to work again. Other city leaders voluntarily disappeared into anonymity – this story was kept quiet at first – so as to avoid persecution and death for their actions.

Upon analysis, a few things stand out about this exceptional situation. First of all, there were conditions on the ground that the village leaders exploited to their advantage. The Gorski Kotar district was somewhat geographically remote from the heart of the fighting during the war. As such, neither the base nor the villagers had direct daily involvement in the heart of the war’s operations. Without interventions for peace that could have certainly changed, and the district could have become an additional center or “theater” of the war; however, the interventions took advantage of the district’s “off the beaten path” status. An additional opportunity came in the fact that one of the base commanders was nearing retirement, weary of his job and of fighting, and was inclined to strike a deal with the villagers as long as he could save face. Therefore, when village leaders approached him and his colleagues with a plan for peaceful coexistence, they were ready to negotiate a plan that would let both sides fly under the radar of the larger war and possibly come away from it largely unscathed.

Secondly, media leaders took their share of responsibility for the creation and maintenance of the arrangement with the base camp, as well as for keeping the peace between the villages during particularly tense weeks. Put simply, radio and print media controlled the message in favor of peace. When infractions to the agreement happened from time to time, from both sides, reporting of the story was done in the least inflammatory way possible. For example, when the base camp did an obligatory firing on the villages (after warning the villagers of the times and locations) and accidentally damaged the radio transmission tower, the base commander sent his own soldiers to repair it immediately so that broadcasts could resume as soon as possible. More importantly, this fact was reported to the community so as to minimize anger and outrage over the incident. In short, media operatives used their power for peace and not for war. They recognized the power of media to incite, enflame, and create the larger narrative in which people experience things in their communities. Through skillful messaging and the coordination of communication lines, they maintained and nurtured the agreement for peace through its many months, creating the very conditions for peaceful coexistence.

Finally, we can see that community leaders in the villages refused to relinquish immediately their roles as leaders to the larger forces of the army. They easily could have done otherwise. Once the base camp was established, they could have decided that war was now inevitable, that their little villages stood no chance to resist the war tide rolling towards them, and that each village needed to now begin fortifying themselves against the army and each other, and prepare to fight and die.

They didn’t do this. Instead, they banded together, created a plan, and took a huge risk in walking up the hill to the base camp and presenting it to the commanders. The creativity, courage and will power this required of them simply cannot be overstated. In the end, this human element is what makes the ultimate difference. Human beings are endowed with self-consciousness, agency and imagination, which allows us to not only visualize alternative scenarios in any given situation, but also to imagine and implement alternative courses of action within them – for ourselves and for others. These leaders together resisted the war tide, created an alternative possibility for their district, and bravely took radical steps to implement it. And it worked. Not flawlessly, but enough to keep their people, their homes and their way of life from going up in flames.

Can what happened in Gorski Kotar work everywhere? No and yes. No, in the sense that certain conditions in place on the ground in this district that contributed to the peace are not in place ubiquitously. Most army base commanders aren’t open to illegal agreements with “enemy” villagers. Not all regional or district leaders – in the media or otherwise – have working relations good enough to band together in wartime to create and implement such a thing as this. Many other factors prevent any one exception, such as what happened in Gorski Kotar, from providing a stable template for peace easily applicable to any other situation. These situations are exceptions, after all.

Nevertheless, what happened here can be instructive for other areas. The positive and necessary role of media in maintaining the peace agreement in Gorski Kotar is abundantly clear. Those who find themselves in similar situations of religious and ethnic conflict will do well to procure access to media, if possible, sooner rather than later in order to shape the messaging toward peace and restraint, away from hatred and violence. Today’s 21st century media technology resists totalitarian control in important ways, as recent events in Iran, China and even North Korea indicate. Those with skills can exploit media for peace as well as for war.

Finally, in the end, much turns on the simple power of human agency and choice, and the willingness of people to join together and exercise that agency in the direction of peace in the face of seemingly impossible circumstances. Of course, such principled action plans don’t always make a difference. In fact, such plans may often fail in times of war. But, they certainly have no chance of success at all if people give up on the fight from the beginning and refuse even to attempt to alter the course of things. On this point, people on the brink of war in all sorts of situations have at least a chance – perhaps not a big chance, but a chance nevertheless – to turn the tide in another direction, or at least to reduce the body count and carnage.

I am haunted by an image one of the community leaders in Gorski Kotar used in telling us their story when we met with them. The radio producer told us that media flies “as fast as a bird, as fast as the speed of light” even; however, it typically arrives after the dead bodies already lay on the ground. The producer and the other leaders in the community wanted to avoid bodies on the ground altogether. They wanted media to be faster than the dead.

It seems, in this case at least, they succeeded.

B. Jill Carroll is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University.

The Madina Charter is a constitution that essentially established the Madina city-state. The Charter was the first written constitution in Islam and arguably the first constitutional law in society. Before Prophet Muhammad’s arrival from Makka, Yathrib (later known as Madina) had a population of 10,000 that was organized into approximately 22 tribes. Approximately half the population was Jewish and half was Arab. Regardless of religion, tribes sought power through military dominance over other tribes, with the numerous alliances forged between warring tribes greatly contributing to the aggression. Constant warfare was taking a toll on the tribes. While some sought external military assistance for the conflicts, many were making preparations for the enthronement of a leader from one of the tribes. However, it was unclear whether each tribe would acquiesce to the leadership of a single leader from one of the tribes and if such a leader would be able to establish political organization, create military defense for the city, reconcile tribal hostilities, and define local rights and obligations as well as address the issues of the growing immigrant refugee population from Makka.

God’s Messenger was requested by the tribes in Yathrib to act as a third-party mediator to try and help resolve the on-going conflict between them. He had a reputation for being an able mediator as he had helped to resolve conflicts in Makka and was able to fill the leadership void that existed in the area. It was also common practice of Arabs at that time to refer their conflict to outsiders, and the Prophet had already been given the title, “The Trustworthy” by the residents of Makka. Finally, while drafting the Charter, he consulted the leaders of each tribe, thereby demonstrating his willingness to listen to the needs of all tribes.

The methods God’s Messsenger made use of in the creation of the Charter are similar to trends that have emerged in modern conflict resolution techniques. These methods provide an important source for understanding the concepts of mediation and conflict resolution in Islam, and subsequently, can also offer effective means with which to approach dialogue with and within Islamic societies and among non-Islamic societies.

The Charter, which was the first declaration of the area of Madina as a city-state, established rules of government and addressed specific social issues of the community in an attempt to put to an end the chaos and conflict that had been plaguing the region for generations. The Charter outlined the rights and duties of its citizens, provided collective protection for all citizens of Madina, including Muslims and non-Muslims, and provided the first means of seeking justice through the law and community instead of via tribal military actions.

The Madina Charter, which contains 47 sections in total, addresses the power structures that contributed to the conflict in Yathrib. The Charter expressly identified the parties involved in the conflict; the first 23 sections of the Charter address the Muslim immigrants from Makka and the Muslims of Yathrib, while the second half of the document is directed towards the Jews of the community. Prophet Muhammad also identified immediate physical issues in Yathrib. In the second section, the people of Yathrib are defined as one community to the exclusion of all others. Prior to this proclamation, the boundaries of Yathrib were indistinct, each tribe occupying a certain territory, with the whole of the tribal territories in the area not being considered as one, united city. Once Yathrib was established as an integrated community, The Prophet addressed issues of community justice and protection. The Charter established the course of law for Yathrib. The right to seek justice was shifted from individuals to the central community. The Prophet’s arrangements for community justice and protection encouraged collective responsibility. The Madina Charter was also the first acknowledgement of religious divisions within the Yathrib tribal system. Though he did little to change the organization of inter-religious tribes, the Prophet called upon the deeply instilled values of Islam and Judaism to fortify the agreement. These stipulations enabled the participants of the agreement to look once again beyond tribal alliances, thus making tribal lines indistinct.

Along these same lines, the Charter focused on relationships rather than group dynamics: the Madina Charter eliminated tribal hostilities by realigning residents, shifting the focus from militaristic rivals to allied religious followers. In the event of religious dispute, the document continued to decree that the participants of the agreement must act in good faith with one another Finally, interaction goals, including specific desires to maintain one’s sense of self-identity, were left intact by shifting the alliance from tribes (which were hostile) to religion, enabling participants to abandon tribal hostility without loss of face.

Before the Charter, Yathrib was a community of constant tension between independent, hostile tribes. The Prophet addressed these power struggles by establishing common goals that would serve the whole community. The Charter specifically advises mutual influence with the declaration that the Muslims and Jews “must seek mutual advice and consultation, and loyalty is a protection against treachery.” The Charter binds the parties of the agreement to helping one another against any attack on Yathrib. It dictates behavior for a specific instance of mutual influence. If the Jews “are called to make peace and maintain it they must do so; and if they make a similar demand on the Muslims it must be carried out.” Also, reference to a higher authority was repeated in both sections. The Charter also explicitly pronounces that future disputes “must be referred to God and to Prophet Muhammad.” The participants had placed a power that was external to their group that they would be able to draw upon in the event of their own power being or seeming insufficient. The power of the agreement was uniquely balanced due to its direction towards God. The Madina Charter addressed potential power complications by focusing the participants on their interdependence. The Madina Charter prohibited independent contention by participant groups that claim God’s protection, and states that the peace of believers is as one. Once again, the idea of being one community was emphasized and the participants of the agreement were made to recognize their power as a unit.

The solutions presented in the Madina Charter can be applied to questions concerning dialogue and conflict of today’s world: the Charter was created to address problems present in and created by a pluralistic society, the main characteristic of today’s globalized system. The constitution of the Charter created a federal-type structure with an authority that was centralized in matters of state security, yet provided the tribes a certain level of autonomy in social and religious issues. Prophet Muhammad only made final decisions in cases where tribes could not resolve disputes between themselves, and these decisions were based on the laws laid out by the Charter. The Madina city-state, while granting every citizen equal rights, protection against oppression, and a voice in the government, declared itself a brotherhood of believers, extending financial help to its citizens. Laws were also enacted to punish criminals, such as prohibiting help being given to a murderer. Finally, as prescribed in the teaching of the Qur’an, freedom of religion was guaranteed for each member of the community.

For a peaceful world, individuals must live within the boundaries of the lawfully created universe. In this modern age of science and technology, the Madina Charter could be a source for answers to questions about how to live together and how to solve and prevent conflicts between groups based on differences in culture and belief. The Madina Charter represents the principles of law and good and right reason, which is higher than any individual man. On the charter, God’s name comes first, as God represents the highest good and the highest principle of right reason. Thus, the Madina Charter can be a good model of ways to create and sustain dialogue in a pluralistic society, and of ways to build and conduct political and social relationships among different groups.

As human beings, we experience many situations that we do not expect and in which we do not feel comfortable. Sometimes we are criticized by others, caught by illness, exposed to unjust treatment, abandoned, imprisoned, or subjected to other unpleasant experiences. Some people may even lose everything they have. Most people become annoyed, depressed, or frustrated under such circumstances. Others, who have managed to look at life and events from a different perspective, can meet such incidents with patience, tolerance, and courage. They consider these events as warning signs that help them to stay on the right track, or they take on these situations to help them hone their skills and to help resist any current or future problems that they may encounter. As a matter of fact, the interpretation of incidents is a context related issue, and it is up to us to define the borders of the context.

Everything in the Universe is Beautiful

Everything, even things which appear ugly, has a beautiful aspect. In the universe, every incident is beautiful either by itself or because of its results. Although some occurrences seem unattractive and confusing, behind these appearances lie a hidden cause and a covert beauty. Who can point at a futile, unnecessary and unintentional creation in the Universe? Look inside the atom, examine the structure of the cell, study the human body, think about the ecosystem, the solar system, and the infinite space that we live in and ask yourself: Which one of these is futile, accidental or unintentional? We all know that a beautiful spring will follow a cold and blustery winter. For that reason, without merely looking at its cold face, we try to see the beauty inside winter and we try to imagine the beauty that will come after winter. If we cannot see that aspect, then winter is indeed a miserable season. Have you ever encountered people swearing at the wind and the rain? Without thinking about their real functions and benefits, such people get angry with the rain and the wind and swear at these wonderful phenomena because of the trifling harm they cause to their personal comfort. They draw the borders of the context according to their interests only, and interpret events from that narrow and shallow context.

Actually, bad results may follow a good event, while good results may occur after a bad incident. In the Quran, God states, œSomething that you do not like might be good for you, or something that you like might be bad for you. You are not able to know this; however, God knows.(2/216) Many times we have heard from others or we have personal experience that something that we wish to happen does not materialize; however, we eventually realize that the result was the most beneficial for us. Likewise, our memories are full of events which, at the beginning, we did not want to occur, but afterwards we came to understand that they were, ultimately, for the good.

We should not forget that we can obtain good results from our personal perception of events, i.e., from our perspective, our prayers, and our consciousness. Destiny looks at the true causes, yet we humans base our decision-making process on visible, tangible reasons. This divergence is the main reason why we at times can find it difficult to comprehend the justice of destiny.

Do Not Judge a Book by its Cover

History is full of great successes that followed desperate events. One example is the Hudaybiya Agreement that was signed between the first Muslims living in

Madina and the people of Makka, who hated the Muslims and who did not want them to visit Makka for pilgrimage. The signing of this agreement happened six years after the emigration from Makka to Madina. At the time of the agreement the Muslims were resting at Hudaybiya on their way to Makka to visit the Ka’ba. Those who had not accepted Islam did not want the Muslims to visit Makka. After several talks between representatives from both sides, the Hudaybiya Agreement was signed and the Prophet of the Muslims and the people around him had to return to Madina.

According to the agreement, those displaced Muslims who had moved from Madina to Makka and who were living in Makka at that time would not be released while the displaced people who had moved from Makka to Madina would be returned, even if they had become Muslims. Abu Jandal, a young Muslim who had left Makka to escape the torture his father had inflicted on him for choosing Islam appealed to the Prophet not to send him back to Makka. His father was the signatory of the agreement, representing the people of Makka. He said, œThis is the first person that you will return to us in accord with the agreement. It was a very hard decision for the Prophet to make. Umar, one of his closest friends and the second caliph after him, asked the Prophet why, if he was the genuine Prophet sent by God, did Abu Jandal have to be returned to Makka. Abu Jandal was crying and pleading: œAre you sending me back to be hurt and tortured? The Prophet was sure that God would never harm them and whispered to him, œBe patient for a while. Try to endure what you will be exposed to and ask God to be rewarded in return. It is certain that God will create a way out for you and the other Muslims who have no protector there. We can not break our promise given in the Agreement.

After the signing of the agreement, many Muslims from Makka, including Abu Basir, wanted to come to Madina. However, the Prophet did not allow them to, saying œA prophet never refutes his promise! Abu Basir found a place named Iss to live in after being denied entry to Madina. Other Muslims who had fled Makka also moved to Iss. The people of Makka were worried about this development and after a while they asked the Prophet to accept the Muslims in Iss. Thus, these Muslims, who were not to have been allowed to go join the other Muslims in Madina were finally given permission to do as they had wished, and the most irritating article of the Hudaybiya Agreement had now been nullified at the request of the very people who had created it, the disbelievers of Makka.

At the beginning, the Hudaybiya Agreement was perceived as being against the interests of the Muslims. On the other hand, this agreement stipulated that both sides would not fight for the following ten years. They put down their swords and enjoyed an environment that was conducive to dialogue. This situation helped the Muslims to express their beliefs. The people of Makka found an opportunity to learn about Islam and to closely monitor the Muslims and their daily practices, and to become aware of their honesty and righteousness. Important persons, like Khalid ibn Walid, a successful military leader, and Amr ibn al-˜As, a political mastermind, accepted Islam, in which they had earlier refused to believe, perceiving acceptance of this religion as capitulation to the force of the sword. Two years following the agreement, the number of the people who had accepted Islam outnumbered the Muslims that had accepted Islam in the first 20 years of Islam.

As can be seen from the above example from Islamic history, an event or situation that appears to be negative or destructive can result in a positive outcome. The Muslims of Makka were forbidden from joining the Prophet in Madina, but taking the situation in their own hands they changed their fate. The ultimate outcome was that, due to the ten years peace that followed the agreement, the number of people who came to believe in Islam increased more than it would have done had conflict continued. When one finds oneself in a negative or unpromising situation one should not despair; the result is never certain. This is a great part of faith “ we should not judge a situation and give up hope, we must always have faith in God, for He has our best interests at heart.