The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland heard today (Friday March 12, 2004) that the work of Dundee’s Al-Maktoum Institute was supporting the Scottish Executive’s policy ‘One Scotland, Many Cultures.’
The Right Reverend Professor Iain Torrance also heard the Institute’s Principal say that the construction of a new Cultural Centre would create better understanding between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities in Dundee.
The Moderator has just returned to Scotland after several days visiting British troops in Iraq and the visit to the Institute was his first public engagement in Scotland since then.
Before welcoming his guest, in front of an invited audience, Professor Abd al-Fattah El-Awaisi, Principal of the Al-Maktoum Institute, called for a minute’s silence as a mark of respect for those who died in the terrorist atrocity in Madrid.
Professor El-Awaisi said: “In the post-9/11 and post-Iraq war environment there is clearly an urgent need for good research and good teaching to break down the barriers of ignorance and intolerance both within Scotland and on an international level. Excellent work is being done at community level, between particular mosques and churches, but the field of Christian-Muslim engagement at an academic level is only at a very early stage in Scotland.”
The Professor highlighted the Institute’s growing international reputation that has seen the development of close links with 10 other academic establishments worldwide and the accolade of being the only UK member of the Islamic Universities League.
He revealed that next week the Institute would play host to an international symposium being held to discuss the development of Islamic Studies.
Leading academics from the Arab world, led by Professor Jafaar Abdelsalam, Secretary-General of the Islamic Universities League, will be in Dundee for three days discussing a wide range of issues with colleagues from around the UK.
Professor El-Awaisi added that projects such as the construction of the Al-Maktoum Cultural Centre, on the site of the former Logie School in Blackness Road, would also help to build better understanding between Muslim and non-Muslim communities in Dundee and would serve as a model for the rest of the country.
He said: “It is only by establishing relationships on an educational, cultural and commercial basis that barriers to understanding will be broken down. I believe the work being done here at the Institute can play an important part in promoting the Scottish Executive policy, ‘One Scotland, Many Cultures.’”
Echoing the theme of multiculturalism, the Moderator said that Christians had to understand that other faiths were not failed answers to problems to which Christianity was the only solution.
Other faiths provided fundamental answers to different but analogous questions.
Professor Torrance said: “In theology and religious studies, the area of excitement today is not only looking at the outside but also at the inside of religions and between religions. As a Christian I understand my own faith better by understanding something of yours. Acknowledgement of otherness lessens the threat of blindness, and I am deeply grateful for your presence in this Institution and for your aims and contribution to society.
“In Scotland much is said about sectarianism and I agree this is a serious evil. Part of the issue is that we’re still wedded to the notion of competitive spiritualities, and fail to understand how much we have in common. What matters is to create an ecology in which faith can flourish, rather than fostering one to the exclusion of others.”
The Moderator concluded with further remarks about the three Iranian asylum seekers on hunger strike in Glasgow with their lips sewn together.
Professor Torrance said: “I appealed to the First Minister to use his influence to avoid both a national disgrace and a personal tragedy. The motive for that appeal is compassion. Let us also agree utterly to discourage the threat of suicide as a device to subvert a legal process. We gladly give shelter to those in distress, but the threat of suicide is a cousin to the violent martyrdom which so defames the name of faith in the world today. Let us agree together in condemning such manipulation.”
