Peacemaker and writer Paul Dekar profiles Daniel Barenboim, a Jewish Argentine-born pianist and conductor, in a series for Interfaith Peacemakers Month.
Cyrus the Great (Approx. 590-529 B.C.E.)
Cyrus the Great was an ancient Persian king known for the civil treatment of his subjects during a time when most kings were known for their brutality. He was an early advocate for religious freedom, embracing the culture of conquered peoples and allowing them to rebuild their ruined temples.
Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi
Peace activist Daniel Buttry and Muslim leader Steve Elturk collaborate in profiling Gandhi, explaining why he was a model for cross-cultural peacemakers.
Kabir
Kabir was an Indian mystic whose poetry spoke powerfully to the hearts of all people, and has been embraced by many cultures and religious traditions.
Maha Ghosananda (1929-2007)
Maha Ghosananda was a Cambodian Buddhist monk who led peace walks during the reign of the Khmer Rouge, a violent insurgency that led a genocidal program.
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207-1273)
Rumi was a 13th Century Persian Muslim poet and mystic theologian. His poems are widely read in Central Asia and the Middle East and are popular in the US.
Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogiji
(1929-2004) Harbhajan Singh Puri was born in 1929 in the part of India that is today Pakistan and was still a teenager when he was called initially to serve as a heroic leader to his own people. In 1947 during the violence associated with the partition of Pakistan from India, he was only 18 but […]
Thich Nhat Hanh
Peacemaker and author Daniel Buttry profiles Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh, including his exploration of ways of reconciling Christianity and Buddhism.
E. Stanley Jones
(1884-1973) Peace is a by-product of conditions out of which peace naturally comes. —E. Stanley Jones A Christian missionary evangelist as an interfaith hero? A man who held open-air evangelistic meetings with thousands of people in a predominantly non-Christian country, called the “Billy Graham of India,” as a role model in learning from other faiths? […]
Ashoka
(304-232 B.C.E.) One must not exalt one’s creed discrediting all others, nor must one degrade these others without legitimate reasons. One must, on the contrary, render to other creeds the honor befitting them. —Ashoka Ashoka was the Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty whose religious conversion to Buddhism led to such a transformation that the one who […]