The ISESCO and 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 had four sessions besides the opening and concluding sessions.

The 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 & Culture for Muslims outside the Islamic world came from very different places starting from South-East Asia with Dr. Mohammad 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 and Europe.

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 Mr Faisal Bin Muammar, Secretary General of King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID) in Vienna, Austria.

Secretary General of KAICIID Faisal Bin Muammar in his opening speech introduced the King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID) in Vienna. 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. The trustees of KAICCID, he said, belonged to three religions and cultures; there are, three Christians, three Muslims, a Jew, a Hindu and a Buddhist.

He also elaborated the programmes of the KAICIID. After his speech, a film on KAICIID was shown to the conference.

First Session
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.

Dr. Pallavicini spoke about the initiative, the issue is the scope, development and engagement in interfaith dialogue.

Dr. Yahya Pallavicini told the audience that he just before coming to the conference he had a meeting with Pope Francis that was followed by meetings with Dr. Hamed al-Rifai and Dr. Abdullah Omar Nasseef, two leading personalities coming from Saudi Arabia.

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 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 about 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. Mohammad 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 propose 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, he said.

Learning Qur’an in 48 hours
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.

He said, “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.”

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