On Monday August 10 and 11, 2015, LLSP participants attended Dr. Amr Abdalla\u2019s two-day workshop \u201cSay Peace.\u201d Dr. Adballa has been offering his auspicious peace and conflict resolution lectures at the Law and Leadership Summer Program for over 12 years. Dr. Abdalla began his workshop by discussing his history working in the field of peace and conflict resolution studies, bringing what can often be a challenging subject down to a more personal level. He remarked: \u201cthis is the beauty of this field\u2026to get to know people\u2026learning about the human being on such a deeper level and having appreciation for people.\u201d
Dr. Abdalla partnered up participants for a role-play activity to test their knowledge and individual methods of effective conflict resolution, taking note of methods that participants found helpful or hurtful to conflict resolution during the activity. Dr. Abdalla stressed the importance of learning peaceful conflict resolution techniques, because \u201cconflict is natural\u2026as long as there are humans, there will be conflicts, all that matters then is how we deal with them.\u201d \u201cNo one wakes up in the morning thinking that he or she is the bad guy,\u201d said Dr. Abdalla.\u00a0If individuals can remember this, while also maintaining respect for the parties involved and their respective cultures, then conflict resolution will be a much easier, more constructive process.
Dr. Abdalla then proceeded to selecting participants to act out a conflict and the steps toward its mediation, following the steps of his model to achieve peace, and to work towards the end goal of conflict prevention. Dr. Abdalla then discussed methods and ideas of conflict resolution through an Islamic perspective, emphasizing the ways in which an Islamic perspective can help mediate conflicts. Dr. Abdalla walked participants through the \u201c10 Negative D\u2019s\u201d and \u201cFive Positive D\u2019s\u201d of conflicts, highlighting statements and actions that tend to either worsen or resolve conflicts. He then discussed the ways in which faith, particularly Islam, plays into the ways in which people should think about conflict resolution, saying: \u201ceverything we\u2019ve discussed is how to resolve and think about conflicts for all human beings, but every culture and every religion has its own elements and perspectives that can compliment the elements of conflict resolution that we\u2019ve already discussed.\u201d
Dr. Abdalla pointed to elements in the Qur\u2019an that are a part of every situation requiring conflict resolution, including: \u201chypothetical solutions, legal ruling, the manner in which the legal ruling will be carried out, and accountability to Allah.\u201d He focused on the principle of maaruf that appears throughout the Qur\u2019an. He said: \u201cif we want to strike at the heart of violence, we have to change the behavior we use when we rationalize harming others. The Qur\u2019an has insisted that in the middle of conflict you must behave in a kind way. Not just kind, but maaruf.\u201d
After discussing challenges participants had faced in their communities, and how they could approach similar situations with the principle of maaruf in the future, Dr. Abdalla had participants take a test to determine their individual styles of conflict resolution so they may better understand their own strengths and weaknesses in conflict resolution. Although some participants were originally surprised by some of their results, most eventually recognized truth in some of the conflict resolution styles they exhibited in the test. One student remarked: \u201cI was surprised\u2026but I think this is spot on\u2026I saw this as something I need to work on\u2026I\u2019ve been told these things before, but to see it on paper is really kind of eye-opening.\u201d Another remarked: \u201cI found that this really is my problem and that I have to work on it\u2026this is very useful.\u201d
Now that students had a better idea of their own conflict and conflict resolution styles, and learned of potential areas for growth, they were ready for a new series of role-play activities in which they could utilize their skills and work on their weaknesses. Dr. Abdalla classified the different methods of decision-making by parties involved in conflicts, recognizing the potential benefits and challenges of each method. \u201cI will not say that one is better than the other,\u201d he said, \u201cideally, people would think and feel and decide for themselves, but they can\u2019t always do that, so giving some form of arbitration in the process can be useful.\u201d He then broke down different approaches to conflict resolution into three styles: professional approach, empowerment approach, and the common good approach. The best approach for any given conflict depends on the desired outcome of the parties involved. However, he noted, \u201cyou\u2019re going to find that there are different societies and communities and that they\u2019ll have different needs based on their society or culture. Some approaches are useful in certain circumstances, while others are more appropriate in other circumstances.\u201d
Dr. Abdalla continued to dismantle the concept of conflict resolution, providing participants with four principles to guide the process of negotiation towards \u201ca wise outcome, reached efficiently and amicably.\u201d These principles include: \u201cseparate the people from the problem, focus on interests instead of positions, invent options for mutual gain, and insist on using objective criteria.\u201d Dr. Abdalla then incorporated the idea of conflict mediation, and the methods and principles that should guide conflict mediation, utilizing a clip from George Qardahi\u2019s TV show \u201c Iftah Qalbak\/ Open your heart\u201d to examine some challenges of conflict mediation. Dr. Abdalla had students work through an additional role-play scenario. At the end of the activity he remarked: \u201cI\u2019m encouraged by how you sound about conflict resolution today versus yesterday\u2026\u201d He ended the day with a discussion with participants of how to incorporate principles of Islam into conflict resolution, negotiation, and mediation.\u201d
At the end of his course, one student said: \u201cyou gave us the tools and the skills for conflict resolution, but also showed us how to apply them in a way that will stick with us.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Monday August 10 and 11, 2015, LLSP participants attended Dr. Amr Abdalla\u2019s two-day workshop \u201cSay Peace.\u201d Dr. Adballa has been offering his auspicious peace and conflict resolution lectures at the Law and Leadership Summer Program for over 12 years. Dr. Abdalla began his workshop by discussing his history working in the field of peace […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karamah.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karamah.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karamah.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karamah.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karamah.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/karamah.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karamah.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karamah.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karamah.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}