One Book For Peace

Religious differences are still at the root of many conflicts around the world. Due to lack of understanding of other religions, people create opinions leading to communal hatred and violence. The Interreligious Council in Bosnia and Herzegovina wanted to tackle prejudice and raise awareness of the importance of inter-religious dialogue. The objective was to bring Christians and Muslims closer, starting a positive conversation.
The One Book puts the teachings of the Bible and the Quran next to each other to demonstrate how similar they are. Verses from each were printed side by side and focused on ten topics to show how much the teachings are alike - One God, Peace, Justice, Love, Family Relatives and Neighbours, Sanctity of Life, Compassion, Forgiveness, Helping Others and Hope. Each chapter has ten verses, and each verse gives the layman a clear understanding of both religions. That’s how we began the conversation about how there’s so much more that unites us than sets us apart.

The book was launched on a prime time show on Al Jazeera Balkans to spread the message of peace to the world. Soon it featured on all leading news channels and received over 150 announcements in the Balkans region alone. The book was also launched globally on Twitter, one page at a time. Using real time responses, we addressed various trending topics and issues with pages from the book about love, hope and peace. We found a common pathway between the church and the mosque where we placed our One Book audio poster. The poster played the verses from the Bible and the Quran, encouraging people to visit the website to listen to the full book and download the audiobook or e-book. On YouTube, our video received over a million views. The One Book touched 53 million hearts globally, which is 17 times the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina.