Riad Jarjour is a Syrian-Lebanese scholar, pastor and peacebuilder whose work has focused on Muslim-Christian relationships since the 1970s. On March 15 and 16, he visited Eastern Mennonite University to lead a chapel presentation, lunch conversation and public forum about his work.
His visit was hosted by Mennonite Central Committee. He was welcomed with special pleasure by EMU’s Center for Interfaith Engagement and by the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.
“Riad has played a significant role in identifying Syrians and Lebanese participants to attend the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, as well as participants for the annual Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience program (STAR) trainings in Beirut,” said Daryl Byler, CJP executive director.
While Jarjour has been a peacebuilder and interfaith ambassador for decades, he has recently expanded into humanitarian and development work since the start of the Syrian Civil War.
In his lunch presentation, Jarjour recounted his brother’s farm in the Syrian countryside, where seasonal workers – Muslims from nearby towns – would come for employment. They became friends on that farm, Jarjour explains. However, after the Islamic State seized the area, they offered workers ten times the salary they could make farming.
In spite of a six-year war that has uprooted millions of Syrians and nearly destroyed entire cities, Jarjour has not lost hope for “a new Syria.” He was encouraged by a recent interfaith assembly of Syrian youth and anti-extremist activists, hosted by Forum for Development, Culture and Dialogue (FDCD), an organization he founded in 2004.
“Hundreds of young people don’t believe in war anymore,” says Jarjour.
“Syria has seen a collapse of values, materials, human dignity, and respect,” he says, but “ISIS is not Islam … I want to live in peace with my Muslim friends there. I do not want to isolate myself.”
FDCD, headquartered in Beirut, offers workshops, conferences and dialogue sessions about approaching conflict nonviolently. Their programming includes psychosocial support programs for Syrian children, workshops for collaborative infrastructure repair, conferences for women countering extremism and distribution of humanitarian aid supplies.
The organization is based upon the work of the World Council of Churches’ Urban Rural Mission program.
Jarjour, who was educated at the Near East School of Theology (Beirut) and McCormick Theological Seminary (Chicago, Illinois), held several positions in the Middle East Council of Churches, a regional associate of WCC, early in his career. One trip to the Philippines to live among and learn from slum residents and poor fishermen focused his attention.
“I came back very enthusiastic for grassroots organizing,” he says. He served as general secretary of the Middle East Council from 1994 to 2003. In 1995, he founded the non-government organization “Arab Group for Christian Muslim Dialogue” out of a gathering of Muslim and Christian intellectuals, scholars, and social servants. This organization has convened various dialogue activities addressing peaceful religious coexistence, including youth summer camps and international seminars.