M any of the customs practiced in the Middle East go back thousands of years. To people who do not live there, these customs are virtually unknown. One little-known custom that pre-dates Islam 1 is the Sulha ritual. This is a method of resolving disputes used in many parts of the Middle East. 2 The Sulha provides the path for reconciliation between the extended families of the disputants, whereas either Sharia law and/or formal 80 NOVEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009 DISPUTE RESOLUTION JOURNAL 81 INTERNATIO NAL legal systems are used to adjudicate disputes be- tween individual disputants, or between dis- putants and the state. The need for a special “clan-level” process arises from the strong affili- ation among family members that exists in much of the Arab world. The result of this affil- iation is that disputes between individuals auto- matically become disputes between clans. Unlike the Sharia courts, the Sulha process is an informal conflict resolution mechanism. Many different kinds of disputes can be resolved through Sulha dispute resolution, including business, financial and consumer conflicts, although many disputes arise out of acts of vio- lence, including murder. Much of the informa- tion about the Sulha involves the more extreme murder cases. For this reason, this article describes rituals and techniques applicable to such cases. However, the rituals and techniques used in other kinds of cases are similar. There is no clan conflict too small for the Sulha, which takes a community approach to Doron Pely is acting executive director of the newly established Sulha Research Center in Shafaram, Israel, and vice president with Homeland Security Research Corp. This article was developed from a Masters Project that Mr. Pely wrote while attending the Graduate Program in Dispute Resolution at UMASS Boston. Information in this paper is based on interviews Mr. Pely conducted with Sheikh Farage Khneifes, a member of the Sulha Committee of the Arab community in the north of Israel, and Sheikh Hamis Mahmud Abu Saaluk, Sulha Maker in the Bedouin and West Bank communities in Israel. Mr. Pely also drew on information from the literature, especially Elias J. Jabbour’s Sulha—Palestinian Traditional Peacemaking Process. The traditional informal conflict resolution method in the Middle East is called Sulha, which means “peace” in Arabic. This process is specifically designed to resolve conflicts between the familial clans to which the disputants belong (called Hamula in Arabic). Although the process employs techniques that are similar to mediation and arbitration as used today through- out the world, it also differs in major respects. This article exam- ines the Sulha process and looks at its similarities and differences from modern ADR. BY DORON PELY Resolving Clan-Based Disputes Using the SULHA, the Traditional Dispute Resolution Process of the MIDDLE EAST