Staff and students at Dundee-based Al-Maktoum Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies are to benefit from an agreement reached with the University of Wurzburg that was signed today (Monday Sept 5). The Memorandum of Understanding linking the two academic institutions will see regular exchange visits, joint co-operation on research projects, publications and academic programmes.
Professor Ulrich Sinn, vice president of the University of Wurzburg, signed the three-year agreement during a visit to Dundee. He also delivered a lecture on “The Idea of Asylum in Greek Religion” to a specially-invited audience in the Michael Adams Seminar room at Al-Maktoum Institute, Blackness Road.
Commenting on the new arrangement, Professor Abd al-Fattah El-Awaisi, Principal of Al-Maktoum Institute said:” We’re delighted to have formed an academic relationship with Wurzburg, our second in Germany. We now have agreements with 14 other academic institutions worldwide including the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt that we signed last year. Scholars from all of them will be attending an Al-Maktoum Institute International Academic Network Forum we are organising in Dubai in November to discuss the way forward for the development of the study of Islam and Muslims. That will be followed by another International forum, here in Dundee, to be attended by students from all of our partner universities.”
Professor Sinn said:”I feel very pleased and honoured to sign the Memorandum of Understanding here today with you on behalf of the University of Wurzburg.
“The spirit of multicultural tolerance is an important matter of concern to the people of our city. I hope that we all together can contribute to a future characterized by interreligious and multicultural respect.”
The Lord Mayor of Wurzburg, Dr Pia Beckmann, said “I respect how Dubai and the United Arab Emirates have been developed as a model for a modern country which has established itself very successfully in the last thirty-five years. I was very pleased to hear that HH Shaikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, the Deputy Ruler of Dubai, had established the Al-Maktoum Institute in Dundee to act as a bridge between nations, people, religions and cultures. I am delighted a working academic relationship has been signed between the University of Würzburg in Germany and Al-Maktoum Institute in Dundee; and that they will work together as partners to develop common academic activities which will help to promote liberal minds and tolerance. With our joint efforts we want to built bridges, overcoming borders, and overcoming fears and prejudices about other cultures and people; without losing one’s identity and culture. This will be an enrichment for both sides”.
News of the new agreement was also welcomed by Dundee’s Lord Provost John Letford who said: “I am certain that the Al-Maktoum Institute will benefit greatly from this new agreement, as will the University of Wurzburg. Dundee is very proud of the close friendships it enjoys with cities around the world, and this is yet another indication of the strength of the links between Dundee and Wurzburg.”
