The Conflict Transformation Project was funded through a grant from the Department of Justice for the purpose of building interfaith relations and mutual understanding between American Christian Evangelicals and American Muslims in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, and for creating and promoting joint conflict transformation projects, trainings, manuals, and goals.

In partnership with the Fuller Theological Seminary, the Salam Institute has sought to engage the full spectrum of views and opinions of American Muslims on dialogue with Evangelicals by reaching out to different members of the Muslim community living in the United States. To this end, the Salam Institute has entered into a collaborative partnership with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Graduate School of Islamic Social Sciences (GSISS), and the Mohamed Said Farsi Chair of Islamic Peace at American University.

With the support of this consortium, the Salam Institute has sponsored two consultations with members of the American Muslim community. The first was held in tandem with the annual meeting of ISNA in Minneapolis, MN, in November 2004. The second was held at American University, Washington DC, in February 2005. Through the course of these and other consultations, a range of issues was put on the table as representative of American Muslims' concerns, as well as prospective positive visions of the American interfaith community.

The first joint conference of American Muslims and Christian Evangelicals was held in Maryland in April 2005. The returns of this very important meeting are currently being compiled for a jointly authored publication.

Fuller and Salam brought eighteen Muslim and Christian peacemaking practitioners together on November 12-13, 2005, to collaborate on developing a peacemaking training manual. Activities from April through July 2006 will test the assembled manual through actual training in five American cities. All final revisions will take place in July and August, leading to the manual's publication in August 2006

Among the anticipated outcomes emerging from the Conflict Transformation Project are an Islamic Guide and Manual to Interfaith Relations, to be jointly sponsored and distributed by ISNA, and an edited volume on Islamic approaches to peace building, which will include a number of papers presented by Muslim participants and fellows and will highlight the importance of intra-religious dialogue for peaceful coexistence.

The Conflict Transformation Project is also actively engaged in supporting and promoting emerging Muslim scholarships for work focusing on Islam, peace building, development, nonviolence, and inter/intra-faith dialogue and understanding in the United States. Toward this end, the Salam Institute has established a Salam peacebuilding fellowship program, which solicited grant applications from young Muslim scholars across the country in early 2005, to sponsor and encourage high-quality research in the field. For the 2005-2006 school year, the Salam Institute selected 11 outstanding scholars whose research will undoubtedly contribute much to the discourse on and understanding of Islam and peace.

In summary, Fuller and Salam have been collaborating for two years in a two-tiered project to seek common practices, patterns, and pathways for conflict reduction and resolution, as well as for dealing with differences within our individual faith communities. The scholarly level has brought Muslim and Christian thinkers together to jointly write and publish materials that will form the basis for education about practices pertaining to peacemaking and the resulting understanding of each other's values, vision, and faith.

The community leadership is now bringing key leaders together for dialogue training events and the exploration of collaborative work in our communities to build bridges of understanding, reduce tension, and increase respect. We believe that we can work together to strengthen our mutual understandings and to live in secure and productive relationships.