Contents
From the Editor
Essay
Articles
The present conflict within Israel/Palestine between the Israeli state and Palestinian Arabs living in territories occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War is often pictured as mirroring a “sibling rivalry” that has been a part of biblical history for centuries. But while the Genesis story of Isaac and Ishmael is painful reading today for anyone sensitive to the emotional well-being of the other, the narratives that have grown up around this story in Judaism and in Islam are markedly different! What constitutes an expulsion within Jewish tradition, and thus evokes a concern for the trauma visited upon Hagar and Ishmael, actually marks the beginnings of the Islamic tradition and is accepted as the action of an unfathomable and all-knowing God/Allah.
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This review essay examines two recent edited books on collective apologies. The 2008 apology of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to former students of Indian Residential Schools provides the lens through which the reviewer shows how the books provide critical interdisciplinary perspectives on apologies and their reconciling possibilities, as well the kind of further work required.
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In early August of 2006, one of South Africa’s most notorious apartheid-era leaders, Adriaan Vlok, contacted the Rev. Frank Chikane, a former anti-apartheid activist, and requested a meeting to discuss “a personal matter.” The former Minister of Law and Order then appeared at Rev. Chikane’s office with basin and towel in hand, resolved to wash the feet of the former head of the South Africa Council of Churches (SACC). Rev. Chikane, as can be imagined, was shocked by the overture, and at first resisted Vlok’s attempt to reenact Jesus’ expression of humility with his disciples as described in the Gospel of John. Finally, however, Chikane, a Pentecostal minister, relented, “having understood that my refusal would deprive him of his liberation and his release from psychological torture. And so in the paradox that so often accompanies sacrament, the roles of power had switched, and Andriaan Vlok knelt at the feet of Frank Chikane. Neither could have predicted that this private encounter would become the focus of intense public debate.
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After some general thoughts about the relationship between religion, conflict, and peace, the focus of this papers narrows to the relationship between Islam and peacebuilding in particular. Foundations for this relationship are laid upon a discussion of the misinterpreted concept of jihad. Islamic values and mechanisms are highlighted to further support an argument for an Islamic concept of peace; of particular importance are the capacities in Islam for nonviolence, the concept of justice in Islam, motivations for humanitarian work in Islam and the duty to work for peace. Excerpts from the sacred texts in Islam as well as examples of practical experiences are used to illustrate and support the argument. The article concludes with thoughts about the absence of most of these practices from the lived reality of Muslim societies.
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Book Reviews
Guy Lancaster
Geth Allison
Andria Wisler and Bethany Haworth
Case Studies