Sulh and Musalaha

Submitted by M'Hamed CHETTALI (Belgium), Feb 15, 2006 at 07:30

Dear Mr. Livnat,

I take issue with your assertion that Muslims lack a culture of civilised behavior to conflict. All Islamic countries have today formal judicial systems and the function of the judiciary has always been highly regarded. But, more importantly, the culture of peaceful conflict settlement is ingrained in religion and practices.

There is no scope here to dwell into the details of alternative conflict resolution mechanisms in the Islamic world, but let me just mention the ritual of sulh (settlement), musalaha (reconciliation), public sulh to establish the muwada'a (peace or gentle relationship), and hodna (truce) in the process of mediation. There are many other variants here and there. If you have humour, you might prefer the Joking cousin relationships in Mali. But, seriously, it is not true that Muslims don't have a civilized culture of conflict resolution.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".