Dr. Ahmad al-Dubayan on Tolerance at Interfaith Meeting

Dr  Ahmad al-Dubayan on Tolerance

in an Intolerant World at Interfaith Meeting

Dr. Mozammel Haque

The Embassy of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), London hosted an Inter-faith conference on Tolerance in an Intolerant World and dinner in cooperation with the London Central Mosque Trust and Islamic Cultural Centre, London on 13 November 2019. A number of special guest faith leaders and diplomats, were attended and spoke at the event which had over 130 attendees. The Islamic Cultural Centre; Director General Dr Ahmad Al-Dubayan and her Excellency Rouda Alotaiba; Deputy Head of Mission UAE Embassy London welcomed the audiences.

Dr. Ahmad al-Dubayan

Dr. Ahmad al-Dubayan, Director General of the Islamic Cultural Centre welcomed the audiences with saying: Peace be upon all of you. He acknowledged: I know I am late. But I welcome to the Islamic cultural centre, in the beginning and at the end. You are welcome and I just come from the airport.”

He came straight from the airport at the last minute and enquired, “Why?” and said, “Because it is very important to come to participate to this interfaith conference; it is important, because we are gathering here to highlight a very beautiful meaning of Islam and of other faiths also this is the tolerance. And the United Arab Emirates (UAE) they named this year 2019 the year of tolerance.”

Speaking about tolerance, Dr. al-Dubayan said, “Indeed tolerance is one of the rules and values all religions talk about and all religions encourage their followers to do it; but always religions have; all we know; problems with the interpretations what does sermon means.”

“I think in the modern time today people are well connected better than before.  Knowledge also is accessible for many many people through many ways, one of them is internet. Of course in spite of the fact we have to be very careful about the information what sources we are using; what source from which we are taking information. But let me say the world has now come closer and closer to each other,” said Dr. Al-Dubayan.

The ICC Chief said, “Now we know or we should know about other people, those who live on the other side of the world. We should know more about the history, we should know more about the faiths, we should know about the traditions. They should know also about us; and for us Muslims, as we know   Let me say  Muslim, in many many cases, is misunderstood, misinterpreted actually by Muslims themselves; by non-Muslims because they rely on some sources which are not reliable.”

Speaking about this interfaith meeting on Tolerance, Dr. al-Dubayan mentioned, “I hope this evening can bring some thoughts or highlights some meanings of tolerance for all of us. The Islamic Cultural Centre following the instructions of the Trustees their Excellencies, we love everybody to be here. This is our message, our mission and the British society, is to open doors not only to the Muslim communities but also for other friends who live and share with us in the society.”

“I know, of course, we have a lot of things that has different opinions; we have different understandings sometimes, even we see something in this hall differently but what someone asked for is really respected and understanding. That is most important,” said the ICC Chief.

Speaking about the Islamic history, Dr. al-Dubayan mentioned, “Let we see the history of Islam, as for example, our faith followers play major role and what we call it today Islamic civilizations. Since the first day of Islam when the Prophet (peace be upon him) was alive and after that many Muslims actually lived in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, north Africa, Persia and Central Asia everywhere; of course in all these areas there were minorities; Jewish communities, Christian communities and not only one type of Christians, but many, the protestants, Catholics, orthodox, they all lived there.”

Mentioning about minorities under the Islamic Civilizations, Dr al-Dubayan said, “During the Umayyad times, immediately after the Prophet (peace be upon him) and also during the Abbasid times we see many of these Christians they were secretaries to the Caliphs, some of them physicians, some of them participated really in writings lots of books, many of them of course survived, we have been today. Also it is the same case with the Jews. We know Musa al-Maimun the famous Jewish philosopher; he was physicians of Salauddin al-Ayyubi, the secretary of the Caliph al-Mehdi, and his son Harun ur Rashid. Actually one of them is one of the great historians patriarch in the north of Iraq. And in their historical accounts we found lot of news and lot of things about Muslim cities and Muslim states at that time. They were respected and they shared many many things; and I think when you have somebody you make him your private physicians that means you trust him so much. Because he is the one who is giving you medicines and organising your food for you. There is nothing beyond this trust and that is the highest trust. And this happened.

Dr. al-Dubayan also mentioned about al-Andalus in Spain. He said, “We should remember always the model of al-Andalus in Spain when Muslims Christians and Jews were lived together; till today many academics call that time is the building time for the Jewish literature. Many of the grammarians in Hebrew language, poets also flourished there during those days of al-Andalus under the Islamic government. What does this mean?”

The ICC Chief said he does not want to keep you busy with many names but there are lots of examples. But he thinks, “This model we can take. During those days we had also at the same time some of the greatest scholars ever in the history of Islam, the four imams, for example. They lived during that time. Other great imams those who were imams in the Islamic jurisprudence they did not say to this relation, to this appointment of many of the non-Muslims in the state itself. If you go back to this kind of history we will see how the society during those days was.”

“Of course sometimes wrong decisions, myths, people who really do not want to forget the history they will always like to repeat it with all the atrocities and problems.  They don’t want to leave this beautiful image last for long time. They always want to disturb this. Whenever we talk about history, we have to be very careful; and I am mentioning here particularly to the young people; do not let history disturb your business and destroy your future,” said Dr. al-Dubai.

Reminding as well as advising the people, Dr. al-Dubayan said, “Every country; every nation on earth have good days in the history and of course bad days. We remember the good things in history and try to repeat them; try to be inspired by them; but we remember the bad days not to take revenge but really not to repeat them again. To avoid and to take lessons from them. This is how we should see the history and we always remember it.”

Giving a cautious note to those who blame somebody for some wrongs, Dr. al-Dubayan said, “If we try to put blame on somebody who is living with us today, among us today, and we blame him something happened three hundred, five hundred, one thousand and two thousand years ago that will never come to an end. Never, never. Because we all have some problems in the history, all of us. But what we should try, we try to understand it, try to study it; we try not to repeat it. This is a message I think of today and that brings tolerance and good relations to all people. This is very very important.”