The Muslim world is set to follow a Scottish city-based Institute’s example and establish a centre of excellence to promote multiculturalism and cultural engagement to help combat world extremism.
This was announced last night (Sunday 8 April 2007) by Professor Abd al-Fattah El-Awaisi, Principal and Vice Chancellor of Al-Maktoum Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies in Dundee.
A leading advocate of multiculturalism as the only way to beat extremism, Professor El-Awaisi was the keynote speaker at the 2007 International Academic Symposium at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi yesterday (Sunday.)
He told delegates that Al-Maktoum Institute in Dundee was an exciting venture that the Muslim world would be advised to emulate as the 21st century map for multiculturalism and cultural engagement is drawn up.
The Symposium delegates agreed to work together towards the establishment of an academic and cultural institute in the Arab Muslim world as a place of tolerance and peaceful co-existence. “Such an institute would enhance two-way traffic between and within people, cultures and religions,” said Professor El-Awaisi. “It should lay the foundations for the new agenda for cultural engagement through higher education with a mission to educate the next generation of scholars and practitioners, locally, regionally and internationally. As a research-led centre of excellence like Al-Maktoum in Dundee, it would promote intelligent debate and understanding on cultural engagement and Islam and the role of Muslims in the contemporary world. It should also generate an atmosphere in which constructive dialogue and engagement will take place rather than a clash.”
The new institute could be created in the United Arab Emirates, possibly in Abu Dhabi itself. “Although we have been successful for setting the new agenda for cultural engagement in Scotland through Al-Maktoum Institute in Dundee at both academic and cultural levels, we urgently need to establish this new agenda in cultural engagement in the Muslim world,” said Professor El-Awaisi. “Better understanding through education is the solution that helps human kind break free of the ‘us and them’ chains of ignorance and rise above extremism and fundamentalism. Education and the reform of religious education is the essential way to beat extremists and to achieve mutual respect and peaceful co-existence,” he said.
In his speech to 150 delegates at the one-day symposium, he said that many people view Muslims as ‘the other’ and vice versa with a prevailing attitude of ‘us and them’.
Al-Maktoum Institute – shortly celebrating its 5th anniversary – has been pursuing a new agenda for the study of Islam and Muslims. It is a research-led, independent institution of higher education that offers postgraduate programmes with degrees validated by the University of Aberdeen.
The aim of the Institute is to be a centre of excellence in the Study of Islam and Muslims, in particular to promote intelligent debate and understanding of Islam and the role of Muslims in the contemporary world. For further information about the Symposium please visit: www.mce-ad.org
