International Interfaith Dialogue
Conference
at Islamic Cultural Centre
Dr. Mozammel Haque
The ISESCO
& The Islamic Cultural Centre, London, held a joint two-day international
conference for the 13th Meeting of the Supreme Council of Education,
Science & Cultural for Muslims outside the Islamic World and the 10th
Meeting of the Directors of the Islamic Cultural Centres and Islamic Associations
in Europe at the Islamic Cultural Centre, London, on 26th and 27th
of June, 2013. The Two-day conference has four sessions besides the Opening and
Concluding sessions.
The Two-day
conference was mainly focussed on Interfaith Dialogue and many Islamic
organisations in the UK were involved in this conference. The members of the
Supreme Council of Education, Science & Cultural for Muslims outside the
Islamic World came from very different places starting from South-East Asia
with Dr. Mohd Hasbi Abu Bakar, President of the Jamiyah Singapore and his
colleague Mohamed Yunos who presented later on one of the latest projects of
advanced technology in terms of dialogue of the tradition of Islamic wisdom.
Then other members of the Council came from Latin America, South America, from
Argentina Dr. Yousuf and all other members coming mostly from Europe, Russia,
Switzerland, France and Dr. Yahya from Italy.
Opening
Session
The
opening speeches were delivered by Dr. Ahmad Al
Dubayan, the Director General of the Islamic Cultural Centre, London; Dr
Abdelilah Ben Arafa, expert in cultural policies and cultural diversity at ISESCO
Directorate of Culture and Communication, Rabat; Dr. Yahya Pallavicini, Chairman
of the Supreme Council for Education, Science and Culture; Dr. Nasir Al
Hujailan, the representative of the Ministry
of Culture in Saudi Arabia and His Excellency Mr Faisal Bin Muammar, Secretary
General of King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious
Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID) in Vienna, Austria.
HE Faisal Bin Muammar
Secretary General of KAICIID
HE Faisal Bin Muammar in his opening speech introduced King
Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious Intercultural
Dialogue (KAICIID) in Vienna. HE Bin Muammar mentioned about the three founding
member-states of KAICIID. He said, KAICIID was established in Vienna, Austria
with its three member states, Austria, Kingdom of Spain and the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia. It was opened at the Hofburg Palace, Vienna, in the presence of
The Holy See, the strong supporter of the Dialogue Centre, on 26th
November, 2012. He also mentioned about the trustees of KAICCID who belong to
three religions and cultures such as, three Christians, three Muslims, a Jew, a
Hindu and a Buddhist.
Then His Excellency mentioned about the aims and objectives
of the Dialogue Centre. He also elaborated the programmes of the KAICIID. After
his speech, a film on KAICIID was shown to the conference.
First Session
After introductory and opening speeches, the first session
was on Introducing the Initiative of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King
Abdullah bin Abdulaziz to strengthen the dialogue between Religion &
Culture and was followed by brief discussion. This session was chaired by Dr.
Yahya Pallavicini, member of the Supreme Council of Education, Science
& Cultural for Muslims outside the Islamic World and the speaker is Abdelilah Ben Arafa.
While introducing the first session, Dr. Pallavicini spoke about the initiative, the issue is the scope, development and engagement in interfaith dialogue. Referring to the film shown on KAICIID earlier, Dr. Yahya Pallavicini said, “Thanks to King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz who actually took the initiative of a very outstanding and important engagement in the field of dialogue which is actually somehow inspirational issue that opened the centre of KAICIID in Vienna but ISESCO has taken the intellectual and international development of this analysis in order to develop strategy, guidelines, network and implement this vision of dialogue in concrete terms but also adopting these guidelines according to situations and places.”
Dr. Yahya
Pallavicini also said, “I am very glad to mention that the development of this
situation is quite easy because I came back just last week from a meeting with
Pope Francis that was actually somehow followed by Dr. Hamed al-Rifai with Dr.
Abdullah Omar Nasseef, two leading personalities coming always from Saudi
Arabia engaging with new Pope Francis and trying to develop a better qualified
relations with Islamic World, with Muslims and with Islamic civilizations and
with our own identity and spirituality.”
Dr. Ahmad Al-Dubayan
Dr. Ahmed al-Dubayan, Director General of the Islamic
Cultural Centre, London gave a summary of what has been said before in the
paper. He said:
“Number
one: Need cultural dialogue centres in the major cities in Europe; at least adopt
projects in major Islamic centres in Europe. Number two: it is very important
to have database, events, publication, supporting the culture of faiths,
Muslims and non-Muslims. Number three: it is important to target the youth, the
young with some cultural activities especially, arts and sports, like football,
or whatever; to concentrate on sports, supporting the culture of dialogue and
understanding. Number four: They suggest having Islamic cultural art
activities, I welcome the idea; because from my experience, Islamic art is a
very big approach for non-Muslim to come to Islam; how Muslims think, how they
see the world. Art is very very important.”
While
dealing with the fourth point on Art, Dr. Dubayan mentioned, “These things will
bring more understanding, I think, the non-Muslims will understand Islam and
they will see Islam not just as they think something we can summarise it in a
word of hate or terror. Art is a very real approach, I know some Europeans who
became Muslims and embraced Islam because of art. They started with art; some
of them started with calligraphy, some of them started with architecture, some
of them started with manuscripts and at the end of the day, they are Muslims.”
Dr.
Dubayan continued with the summary of the papers presented, “Number Five
suggestion in the paper Coordination of the Islamic centres here with the
British Institutions. I think coordination with the British institutions
particularly why we put it in the paper in this centre here because Muslim
communities in UK have achieved a lot of things more than other active
communities in France, in Germany, in Denmark, in Italy or anywhere. Muslim
Communities in Britain have their own experience. They have achieved a lot of
things or built institutions. They have more schools, more Muslim figures who
work in the political arena; Islamic media or press, more than other Muslim
communities around in Europe, even more than Muslims in America.”
In
this connection, he also mentioned the role of the British government who has
“given Muslims more space and their philosophy is co-existence; country
supporting co-existence. London itself is a city of multicultural nature;
that’s why; you find interfaith activities are more than other European
countries. The directory of the interfaith network, their book, they registered
about 300 organisations only in UK dealing with interfaith and dialogue
activities. Some of them, of course, are local, between the mosques and the
church or synagogues or temple or something or some of them really are
nationwide. Some of them are international,” Dr. Dubayan said. .
Proposal to establish ISESCO Regional
Research Centre in Singapore
Dr.
Mohd Hasbi Abu Baker, President of Jamiyah Singapore expressed his gratefulness
and gratitude at the very outset to ISESCO, in particular, for choosing Jamiyah
to work with ISESCO for more than ten years now. “We shall do our best to
closely work with ISESCO. We are proposing to establish an ISESCO Regional
Research Centre in Singapore to serve the Ummah in South East Asia, in the Pacific
region. The Regional Research Centre shall be the focal point of scholars,
researchers, institutions, organisations within and outside of South East Asian
countries and deal with the studies and research on various aspects of Islamic
civilization. I will forward the complete detail of this regional research
centre to ISESCO, through Dr. bin Arafa soon,” Dr. Mohd Hasbi said.
Jamiyah
President also mentioned, “We are moving towards utilising technology to spread
our Islamic work. For example, two weeks ago, we launch a project called I-council
at our 37 free legal clinics where I constantly use the internet technology to
provide legal counselling.” He requested his colleague, Mohamed Yunos to make
the presentation. This is another attempt by Jamiyah to talk to more people to
learn reading Qur’an in 48 hours through utilising the modern technology to
reach out to more Muslims around the world.
Learn Qur’an in 48 Hours
Muhammed Younus, Jamya Singapore
Mr.
Mohamed Yunos, Vice-President-II of Jamiyah Singapore presented and
demonstrated the most effective and productive way to learn Qur’an through the
use of modern technology. He said, “Jamiyah Singapore have to find an effective
way how to educate our brothers and sisters in Islam in the most efficient and
in a more productive manner. That’s why; recently there is big interest, a big
charm in Islamic education. Jamiyah Singapore has seized this opportunity and
come up with various programmes to address the needs of brothers and sisters in
Islam.”
Mr.
Yunos mentioned, “One of the projects that we are embarking on is to learn
Qur’an in 48 hours. We have completed this book. We have been using this book
since December 2012 and we have great response from brothers and sisters who do
not know how to read Qur’an. They have
zero knowledge. Alhamdo Lillah, within 48 hours they are able to read
Qur’an with Tajweed. This is quite a remarkable achievement.”
Brother
Yunos demonstrated how to use the technology, learning the lesson which emphasize
on reading Qur’an with proper Tajweed. “The book is designed for all
age-groups, whether seven years old or seventy years old, who have zero
knowledge of the Qur’an, they can use this. And this book is suitable for
beginners, as I said before. Zero knowledge of Arabic language,” said Jamiyah
Vice-President-II.
Mr.
Yunos also mentioned, “This Apes will be launched on the 7th of July
2013 and it will be available. We call it learn Qur’an in 48 hours. If you go
to the apotos; you make a search learning Qur’an in 48 hours, you will be able
to see this Aps and you can download from there Insha Allah. This is our
first step to impart Dawah, especially in Singapore and we are minority Muslims
and we have to do something that most efficient and most effective in order to
educate our Muslims in Singapore.”
Mr.
Yunos made a proposal to ISESCO and its members to get endorsement from ISESCO.
He said, “We have no choice but we have to speed up our efficiency in
delivering the knowledge of Islam and my proposal down here today to ISESCO is
to get endorsement from the ISESCO and its members before you go to the apes. When
you saw this with the symbol, the logo from the ISESCO, logo from its members,
people would not have any doubt whether this Aps is valid, real or whether it
has been verified by Muslim scholars. We have done it and continue with all the
Muslim scholars all over Singapore to come up with programme learning Qur’an
within 48 hours.”
Jamiyah
Singapore is an Islamic society which has been in existence for 81 years. Mr.
Yunos expressed his hope to get the support, the endorsement, from ISESCO and
all its members.”
Recommendations
We
are asking ISESCO to teach Arabic for non-Arabic speakers in collaboration with
Ibne Sina Institute in Leeds/Leon.
We
are asking ISESCO for the 14th meeting of the leaders of the Islamic
Councils collaborating with their head office also asking the Vatican to
collaborate with ISESCO.
We
are also asking ISESCO to have the 9th meeting in the Caribbean and
Latin America in the Republic of Guinea during 2014 to study the activation of
Latin America.
The
conference thanks Jamiyah Singapore for their centre promoting Islam asking
their representative to collaborate with the ISESCO for scholars.
We
are asking ISESCO and all other organisations to have initiative called Muslim
Makers of Peace.
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