Mandeep Singh Bedi is currently a sophomore at Montgomery Blair HS. Although he was born in Maryland, his parents are from India, and so religiously he is a Sikh.  His hobbies include ping-pong, listening to Indian music, backgammon, walking his dog, doing easy algebra, playing videogames, and reading.  His dog is a German shepherd named Raja, which means "King" in Hindi, and is definitely Mandeep's most favorite thing in the world.  

Essay Abstract:  This essay describes the lives and teachings of the prophets of the three Abrahamic faiths:  Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad.  It provides background on the lives of each prophet and describes how different events in each one's life showed the characteristics of leaders of peace.  Each description highlights a specific quality of the prophets that teachings could be applied to the problem of drug abuse in India among the youth to create a peaceful solution.

On the value of the Children of Abraham project: This essay was important as it exposed me to the different ways in which peace can be achieved in the world.  Although peace is generally wanted in society, it isn't until one explores the peace efforts of those in the past that one realizes the leadership and vision of a person who truly wants peace.  Through the teachings of the leaders of the three Abrahamic faiths, I have seen examples of what true leadership in peace is.

Moses, Jesus, Muhammad — Leaders of Peace,
by Mandeep Singh Bedi

Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad were all revolutionary leaders of their times. Their lives were fraught with the dangers that are expected of those who dare to act differently, the burdens of taking responsibility of a group of people who desperately need help, and the hardships of maintaining peace in times and places where fear had spread and it was thought that no one was to be trusted. However, to these great leaders, such dangers were nothing but necessary risks; such burdens were simply the fledgling joys of society that one would be honored to carry; and such hardships were only the jobs, the duties of men devoted to the happiness and peace of society. Indeed, the leadership and sacrifice of these men made differences in the lives of many and still do today. In today’s world, the conflict in India regarding drugs could be solved by peaceful means by simply following the ideals, morals, and paths set down by the three great prophets. There were slight differences in how Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad worked for peace and united their respective groups of people, but they all worked towards the same goal.

Moses was an example of a most compassionate leader, who put great emphasis on the idea of self-sacrifice for the greater good. As the adopted son of the Pharaoh’s daughter, Moses was in a position of power and was able to see the suffering that the Jewish slaves endured, at the same time protected from such suffering by the power of the throne. However, despite the fact that Moses didn’t have to endure the suffering that the slaves did, despite the fact that he had power beyond those of most people in Egypt, Moses pitied the slaves. In fact, Moses once killed an Egyptian overseer for beating a Jewish slave, despite the fact that the overseer was simply doing his duty to the Egyptian throne. One can see that Moses contained a capacity to love uncharacteristic of one in power at the time, even for those slaves who were considered less than human. Such compassion is necessary in a leader for peace, as it shows that the leader is willing, even happy, to treat all as equals, giving everyone the same amount of love. Another example of the leadership in peace of Moses was his decision to share the punishment meted out by God to his followers when they turned unfaithful in Moses’ absence. Moses had come from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments from God to find the freed slaves engaged in adulterous activities, showing their lack of self-control whenever Moses wasn’t in their presence. God had threatened to destroy the Jews for their sins, and, although Moses was equally enraged at the Israelites for their behavior, he still forgave and loved them, and responded to God that if He would destroy his people, then he should destroy Moses as well. This shows the extent of Moses’ love. Despite the fact that the Jews had sinned, Moses recognized that no humans were perfect and he forgave his followers, expecting them to learn to learn from their mistakes. In this respect, Moses was a true parent to his children, and his opposition to God for the sake of his people shows how he valued his life as nothing compared to the lives of his children. A final show of the sacrifice of Moses was his acceptance of the punishment God gave to him for disobeying an order. While on the way to Israel, the Israelites became plagued with thirst and begged Moses for water. Moses, in turn, asked God how to get water. God told Moses to, in the presence of the Israelites, order a rock to yield its water by speaking to it. Moses then taps the rock with his staff to release the water instead of simply speaking to it. Apparently, this slight variation in Moses’ execution of the order as compared to what God initially ordered incurred God’s wrath, and he forbade Moses from entering the land of Israel as punishment. Moses, who now had lost the chance of accompanying his followers into the new land, might have lost hope. If it had been anyone else, they would have given up on the Jews and left them to make it to Israel themselves, as God had left his side. However, Moses’ love for his people was so great that even when God himself had forsaken him, he still brought the Israelites home. He himself had lost any tangible or material incentive in the completion of the journey, but the incentive of bringing peace and joy to the lives of the Jews was enough to fuel Moses and give him the strength to finish the journey. Moses was a truly compassionate man, detached from the earth in all material comforts, with the sole goal of bringing peace and the teachings of how to live peacefully and happily to the world.1

Jesus was another very influential pioneer in the struggles for peace. In his time, Jesus was generally known as the Son of God. In one episode of his life, God led him into a desert where the Devil tried three times to tempt Jesus to perform a miracle. However, Jesus refused each time. By rejecting the offers of temptation despite the fact that he could impress others and gain power by showing a miracle, he did not and thus showed the important quality of a leader of peace that involves staying true to your beliefs and people. Jesus didn’t wish to usurp his position as the Son of God and advocated equality in this way. In addition, Jesus shows his concern for the well being of all by creating a disturbance in Herod’s Temple. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, he proceeded to overturn the tables of the money exchangers in the temple, with the justification that money exchangers were robbers in the temple. This is an example of Jesus’ righteousness as he was defending the rights of the poor who exchanged their money in the temple and were robbed by the money exchangers. He demanded equal opportunity and fairness for all. Lastly, Jesus showed his love for all when he healed his captor. When Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, the guards captured him and prepared to take him to court. However, one of Jesus’ apostles cut off the ear of one of the captors to stop Jesus’ capture. Jesus immediately healed the captor’s ear and admonished his apostle for using a sword when he should actually forgive and love everyone, even his enemies. This example of Jesus’ omnipresent love and teaching that one should treat others as siblings and not enemies is a prime characteristic of a peacemaker. Jesus’ self-discipline and infinite capacity to love and forgive make him an eternal figure of peace, admirable no matter what religion one practices.2

Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, was the last major prophet of the three Abrahamic faiths and a most compassionate and fearless leader of peace, who never strayed from his ethics no matter how desperate the situation. Muhammad was born into a poor family, and by age eight was living with his generous but weakly financed uncle, who at this point was his closest family member, as his parents had both died. In order to support himself, Muhammad began to work as a shepherd and accompanied his uncle to Syria with his caravan whenever it was time for trading. Later, at the age of twenty-five, Muhammad, while in Mecca, heard of a new organization starting called the Hilf al-fudul, an order of chivalry, designed “with the aim and object of aiding the oppressed in Mecca, irrespective of their being dwellers of the city or aliens.”3. Muhammad immediately joined this group and stayed with it eagerly and faithfully, showing his earnestness to improve the lives of others from early on. In retrospect, a man as young as Muhammad would have much prospect for the future, and joining a charity group to help others would be widely viewed as a waste of time and youthful years. Muhammad, however, joined at the ripe age of twenty-five and committed himself wholeheartedly, with no regrets. In addition, in the year 622, when the pagans and other violent non-believers were persecuting Muhammad and his new religion of Islam, Muhammad still behaved civilly with them. The pagans, who although were against Islam, still believed that Muhammad was an honest and trustworthy man, and had previously trusted him with their savings. Now, after being forced to secretly escape the town of Mecca where pagans were planning his assassination, Muhammad still had the honor and sense of nobility to entrust all the deposits from pagans given to him with his cousin Ali, who was told to return the deposits to their rightful owners. This example of Muhammad’s undying sense of honor and duty to his principles is prime evidence of Muhammad’s love for all, even those considered his enemies, and his impartial moral compass, which always pointed out the right path for him to take without letting his emotions bias his thoughts against enemies. His enemies were treated as equally as his allies. The last major example of Muhammad’s sense of equality and fair share of love for all is illustrated in his method of reorganization in Medina. After being exiled from Mecca by the pagans, Muhammad and his followers took refuge in Medina, where they created their own city-state with a constitution written by Muhammad himself and managed to coordinate religion and politics effectively. Within Muhammad’s city-state, all religions were accepted as equally as Islam. Despite the fact that Muhammad was being persecuted for his religion and beliefs, he still had the compassion and integrity to recognize that in order to make one love you, you must show them love, and so he allowed them to practice their religion as was only fair. Jews, Muslims, Arabs, Christians, and members of other faiths were all treated uniformly. After considering the many deeds of Muhammad, one can accurately describe him as the “Honest Abe” figure of a leader—he was candid in all of his operations, acted honorably and according to his and his religion’s principles, and above all full of love for the people of the land and well-being of mankind.3

The current conflict in Punjab, India is that the youth are becoming increasingly involved with drug usage. Drugs are becoming easier to access and a lack of political intervention as well as anti-drug programs has resulted in the careless use of these drugs. As a result, India’s youth are steadily becoming drug addicts, dropping out of school, and hurting the health of themselves and families. More and more children are becoming delinquents and are leaving their families. Following the example of Moses, what one could do to promote peaceful existence and drug-free lives in India would be to devote time and money to creating upgrades in Indian education and programs to rehabilitate kids and get them back on track with their lives. Upgrades in the educational standards of the youth would encourage students to go back to school and leave drugs behind. This reflects the example of Moses in that Moses did whatever he could to help his people reach their goal of reaching Israel. For example, his miracle act of taking water from a rock to give his people showed the depth of his love for others and similarly, by enhancing education, one would show how much they care for the Indian youth. The programs to rehabilitate drug addicts would parallel Moses’ forgiving attitude towards his people—even when he recognized that they had sinned, Moses still chose to protect his people, despite the threats of God Himself. Following the example of Jesus, we should create programs not only to educate youth about drugs but also to teach them discipline and loyalty to one’s principles. Just as Jesus resisted the temptations of the Devil, the Indian youth should be taught to resist the temptations of drugs, as they will become harmful for their health in the future. By creating programs to advertise and educate for the development of strong will power and faith in the future, the hopelessness of the Indian youth will definitely go down. Following the example of Muhammad, we should make efforts to rehabilitate drug addicts with economic aid. The rehabilitation programs would consist not only of education of the dangers of drug abuse but also economic aid. As drug abuse is often a result of a lack of focus, by helping former drug addicts get employment, one may effectively provide a focus for the person to gradually steer their life away from drugs and to something productive for society. This follows Muhammad’s example as Muhammad was an advocate of fair treatment himself—by giving the youth the information regarding the dangers of drugs they need to break the addiction and then providing an economic opportunity with which the youth may get back on his/her feet no matter what their current financial situation is, one is effectively providing the youth the tools they need to really have a fair chance at succeeding in today’s world.

Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad were all very great men in their own respects. Their achievements not only would have earned them the Nobel Peace prize of today, but are also the basis for such awards. Indeed, these prophets harbored the compassion and strength of character and mind necessary in a leader of peace—they set the precedent for the future of peace in mankind. The greatest aspect of these men, of course, was their own humility. In the end, no matter how great a role they played in the eternal struggle for peace, they were only human and they acknowledged that. Whether born into opulence or into poverty, these men had the character necessary to acknowledge that all men were created equal and that that included them. Ultimately, the major tools of peace utilized by the three great prophets were those of God and love, and before these powers, no one and nothing takes precedence—all are equal.

Bibliography
Armstrong, Karen. Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet. New York: Harper San Francisco, 1992.

Duquesne, Jacques. Jesus: An Unconventional Biography. Berkhamsted, U.K.: Triumph, 1996.

Jewish Virtual Library. Moses. 2006. Jewish Virtual Library.  29 Dec. 2006
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/moses.html.

LexicOrient. Muhammad. 2006. LexicOrient.  1 Jan. 2007 http://lexicorient.com/e.o/muhammad.htm.

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin. Biblical Literacy: The Most Important People, Events, and Ideas of the Hebrew Bible. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1997.

Swindoll, Charles R. The Darkness and the Dawn. Nashville: Word Publishing, 2001.

University of Southern California. “The Prophet of Islam - His Biography.” USC-MSA Compendium of Muslim Texts. University of Southern California/MSA.  6 Jan. 2007 http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/prophet/profbio.html.

Wikipedia.org. “Jesus.” Jesus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia.  3 Jan. 2007 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus#Life_and_teachings.2C_as_told_in_the_Gospels.

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