Sari Nusseibeh

Sari Nusseibeh has been the president of Al-Quds University, in Jerusalem, as well as a professor of Islamic philosophy there since 1995. He is also the president of the Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization and the author of Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life (New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007); and with Mark Heller, of No Trumpets, No Drums: A Two-State Settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (New York, Hill and Wang, 1991). A Palestinian born in Syria, Nusseibeh earned a B.A. in politics, philosophy and economics from Christ Church, Oxford, in 1971 and a Ph.D. in Islamic philosophy from Harvard University in 1978.

Our focus has been on the divine religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, while we ignored the predominantly peaceful relations between Buddhism and Hinduism. Japan, for instance, did not forsake its original Shintoism for Buddhism when the latter was imported from India via China, but embraced both religions instead. Disputes between Christianity, Judaism and Islam are caused by their problematic common source and similarities, unlike Shinto and Buddhism, which were able to coexist because of their dissimilarities. The solutions lies primarily in renouncing the religious bond and secondly in adhering to humanitarian rather than religious values since those values are embraced by all. Thus, when a religious value contradicts a humanitarian value, the latter must prevail. This is the only way by which we can accept one another.

–Muhannad Hamid and Adham Munasirah, "A Conversation with Sari Nusseibeh: Human Values Unite, Religious Values Divide," Qantara.de, 2008