In more than 20 years of participating in interfaith dialogue, guest lecturer Dr. Mohammad Shomali has travelled widely. He is the director of international affairs at Jami’at al-Zahra, a Shi’a Islam seminary for women, as well as director of the International Institute for Islamic Studies (IIIS). He resides in Qom, Iran.

“I feel at home in many places in the world,” Shomali said, “but ��ݮ���� is one of those places where I really feel at home.”

Peace and peacebuilding, along with interfaith dialogue, is one of the core Quranic principles, Shomali says. This was one reason why nine female seminarians from Jami’at al-Zahra studied at SPI this summer, escorted by Shomali and his wife, Mahnaz Heidarpour, who also teaches at the seminary. In prior years, SPI has hosted a total of 10 students from Iran, but never a group of this size all at once.

Interactions with SPI students from around the world provide a practical complement to required seminary coursework in comparative peace studies, Shomali said. “Theoretical knowledge can come through books, but when the students eat and talk together and go to churches, this is different. They learn about the way people think, live, behave, and plan. This is very valuable.”

The Iranian women praised the interactive style of teaching at SPI, where lengthy lectures are rare and role-playing is common.

“We do lots of exercises, many projects, in this class,” said Sabereh Ahmadi Movaghar, referring to “Leadership for Healthy Organizations” taught as a seven-day intensive by David Brubaker, PhD, and Roxann “Roxy” Allen Kioko ’04, MA ’07. She also took “Faith-based Peacebuilding,” taught by Roy Hange, a Mennonite scholar and pastor.

Movaghar’s home institution, Jamiat al-Zahra, is the world’s largest Islamic seminary for women, with 5,000 Iranian students, 1,000 international students and 10,000 enrolled in distance learning. The nine students at SPI are all linked to the postgraduate section of the seminary’s international department.

“These women are excellent, diligent students,” said J. Daryl Byler, executive director of EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. “They are devoutly religious as well as delightful – with great personalities, warm laughs, and deep insights. The friendships being built are priceless.”

Shomali told an EMU reporter that he hoped for better relations between the people of Iran and people of the United States and noted similarities between Quranic and Christian teachings about the importance of peace. “God says about the Quran in the Quran itself that God guides with the Quran those who seek His pleasure to the ways of peace (5:15).” There are “lots of things we can learn from each other,” he added. Iranians are rational people and “when you are rational, you tend to dialogue with people of other faiths and other cultures.”

Shomali welcomed more exchanges of Americans and Iranians from a variety of fields, including artists and professionals. He said that to reduce mutual misperceptions and encourage peace, “Nothing can replace face-to-face encounters. Our first Imam, Imam Ali, is quoted as saying: ‘People become hostile towards what they don’t know.’”
— Lauren Jefferson and Bonnie Price Lofton

Over the years of teaching faith-based peacebuilding I have met students who are heroes of hope. Among them were:

• A nurse trainer who educates student nurses from three religious backgrounds to work with patients from the same three religious backgrounds. This nurse came with a vision to incorporate peacebuilding into the education of nurses.
• A professor of peacebuilding who has worked with former militants from religiously oriented conflicts and instilled in them a vision for peacebuilding. This student came with the vision of a better future for his country and faith community.
• A woman peacebuilder who returned to her war-torn country with a new vision for how the work of faith-based peacebuilding can bring hope. This student came with the vision for an end to war in her country.
• A producer of children’s television programming with a vision of integrating peacebuilding with the dominant faith of her home country. This student came with the vision that the next generation in her country would not face the challenges she did.

I have also seen fascinating things happen when these heroes of hope become friends in joining their visions and experiences in classroom discussions that spill over into lunch time conversations.

As religious parties emerge as dominant players in various Middle Eastern countries following or expecting political transformation; as religious and cultural sentiments are key elements of transforming the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan; as North Africa and Central Africa face emerging religious tensions with political consequences; as China is facing new challenges from the growth of Christianity and the emergence of Muslim identity in its western regions; and, as religious sentiments are playing a significant role in various elections around the world, the need for faith-based peacebuilding stands at the forefront of a better human future.

Each year in the at the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, students gather from various continents to explore and imagine how the resources from their faith traditions can empower them to be more effective peacemakers. Each year’s class experience is enlivened by discussions among students and new relationships between students that create a visionary culture for peacebuilding. Each of us have left the week together in the course feeling that we have stood together on the holy ground of transformation.

Each year on the last day of class we send each other off with a blessing for the work ahead of us in our individual settings. After seven days together in the course we each have a deepened sense of what the challenges the other students face are. Often we have become a community of visionary hope for each other while holding that hope across religious difference. This hope is held in the realization that this work is not easy.

Reading the news since last year’s Faith-based Peacebuilding course has convinced me anew of the need for people of faith to find the resources from their traditions that promote peacebuilding.

[In addition to teaching “Faith-based Peacebuilding” at SPI, Roy and his wife, Maren, co-pastor in Charlottesville, Virginia. Roy is also the overseer of the Harrisonburg District of the Virginia Mennonite Conference. Previously, Roy and his wife spent ten years in various Middle Eastern countries working with the . Roy holds an Mdiv from in Elkhart, Indiana.]