Politics Case

"The recompense for an injury is an injury equal thereto (in degree): but if a person forgives and makes reconciliation, his reward is due from God: For God loveth not those who do wrong."This paper is about dispute management from an Islamic perspective. This is an area of scholarship about which much has been written in Muslim literature. However, from the view of the West,3 this is largely an unknown entity,4 with very little academic writing in English.5 It may surprise many Western Dispute Management theorists and practitioners that Islam has had a system of dispute management in combination with formal adjudication that is nearly two thousand years old.This paper will look at Islam and Dispute Management from both an historical and geographical overview. Although the religion of Islam is uniform across the Muslim world, there are differences due to culture in the manner in which dispute management systems are applied.6 For example, this paper will highlight dispute management as used in Malaysia, the use of 'sulh'7 in Saudi Arabia and systems in place in Lebanon to deal with conflict. All have the same distinct similarities, such as the Kadi8, however this role is utilized differently, and has different dispute management powers in the different countries.Modern developments and usage of Islamic Dispute Management will also be highlighted in this paper. Just as the West can learn a lot about Islam, Muslim countries can also derive a great deal from the recent development of dispute management, its practices and processes, from the West. This is very similar to the ideas about Asian (Chinese) Dispute Management systems, which are evolving from their Confucian roots due to their contact with the West.9 This paper will also attempt to posit a view on the future developments of dispute management in the Islamic system.

Buckley (1995) provides sound advice about negotiating with people from another culture: "it is advisable, indeed imperative to learn as much as possible about the mores and attitudes of that culture"10. By extension, this statement can be applied to different religions, such as Islam, where an understanding of the different legal tenets can provide a distinct advantage in negotiations, be they commercial or political.