News

Lessons from East Asia – Should the Arab World Turn East?

This week, Tabah Foundation welcomed Dr. Shaojin Chai, a senior researcher at the Ministry of Culture in the UAE and former lecturer in Zayed University and American University of Sharjah, to give two lectures on examining the native cultural models of East Asia and the challenges faced by East Asian nations in retaining their cultural identities and indigenous values throughout modernization.

During the 20th century China experienced both the Communist and Cultural Revolutions, which sought to replace any aspect of the “old culture”, including the framework of Confucianism, with modern ideologies. After these spiritual aspects of the old world were eradicated, the competing forces of communism, nationalism, capitalism, and individualism would take precedent. Many Chinese revolutionaries believed that this was the only way to achieve modernity and that the old concepts of spirituality would be long forgotten as a result.

However, Dr. Shaojin argued that there has been a revival in traditional Confucian values in East Asia despite the attempts to remove native religious and spiritual thought. In Japan, the third largest economy in the world, the economy flourished as it incorporated traditional values in the business world. Despite Western influences, South Korea became a mixed economy as it saw the need to maintain the welfare of its people. The desire to retain traditional values can be found in Korean dramas which espouse care for the family unit and relatives.

Even China, despite having much of its religious traditions suppressed, has started to see its own revival. In rural China, self-governance and local rule has been permitted in stark contrast to governing principles in the official state ideology. Recent studies have emerged on the effect of traditional values within villages, showing that villages which preserved religious values contained less corruption. In cities, developments have emerged to find that the population is turning more towards religion and spirituality. According to Dr. Shaojin, “though the western models of secularization attempted to replace the spiritual void with material wellbeing, the people of China still longed for spiritual wellbeing”.

Concluding the lecture, Dr. Shaojin proposed that examining East Asian models of development, in which cultural revival and preservation has been recogised, could be an alternative for the Arab world as it struggles to resist cultural erosion amidst the pressures of western models of development.

“Any culture that wants to progress must first understand its own culture.”
While models are not perfect in every context, the Arab world can use the example of the East to be mindful of self-development. Identity must be retained with progress, whether that is found in language or religion.

 

This lecture was presented as part of the Futures Initiative at Tabah Foundation.

Tolerance & Coexistence in the 21st Century from Abu Dhabi

The Tabah Foundation in cooperation with the Canadian Embassy in the UAE, and under the auspices of His Excellency Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development, organized a nighttime symposium replete with a diverse multitude of attendees on Tuesday March 10th, 2015 at the InterContinental Hotel Abu Dhabi’s Auditorium. The event’s keynote speaker was Dr. John Andrew Morrow—a Canadian scholar who lectures at Ivy Tech Community College, USA—joined by prominent guests including Sheikh Ahmad Al Kubaisi, Sheikh Ahmad Abdul Aziz Al Haddad, Canadian Ambassador in Abu Dhabi Arif Lalani, and Chairman of the Tabah Foundation Habib Ali Al Jifri, alongside a select elite of diplomats and social dignitaries.

The evening was kick-started by a tour of an exhibition showcasing a collection of photocopied documents and manuscripts discovered by Dr. Morrow in his critically acclaimed study on “The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World.” In his speech, Morrow referred to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)’s treaties with the Jews and Christians since the very beginnings of Islam, and mentioned that these covenants continued to be honored during the reign of the Four Rightly-Guided Caliphs, and through the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, all the way to down the Ottoman Empire. He pointed out that records of these covenants were not only found in Islamic sources but also detected in other sources, such as Christian-Arab sources and translated into a number of languages including Latin, Ancient Greek, Assyrian, and Persian. Dr. Morrow further indicated that the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)’s covenants with the Christians of Najran and Persia, as well as Assyrian and Orthodox Christians, Egyptian Copts, and Abyssinian Christians, invariably underpin the values of tolerance, equality and peaceful coexistence amongst all, in an unprecedented and advanced move for an era marked by intolerance of pluralism.

The Chairman of the Tabah Foundation—Habib Ali Al Jifri—then commented on Morrow’s speech, saying: “We are today at a momentous turning point in Muslim history, in light of the presence of those who ascribe the crimes and perversities committed to the Holy Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet (pbuh); such a correspondence is forbidden and unacceptable, since there is no such thing as a moderate or an extremist Islam, rather, there are moderate Muslims and extremist Muslims.” After that, Sheikh Ahmad Al Kubaisi and Ambassador Arif Lalani each delivered separate short speeches. Subsequently, tweeters interacted with the event on social media networking site Twitter using the hashtag #المعاهدات_النبوية for Arabic speakers and #CovenantsUAE for English speakers.

Furthermore, the Tabah Foundation held a number of specialized debate circles for the purpose of engaging specialists among the attendants in the discussion on par with roundtable debates on the one hand, with its guest Dr. John Morrow on the same topic. A roundtable was held for scholars and researchers, another for Arab diplomats, and a third for non-Arab speaking diplomats, besides a meeting with Arab academics and clerisy. The event also included two televised programs on Wednesday evening: one on Sky News Arabia hosting Dr. Morrow and Habib Ali Al Jifri, and an interview with Morrow on Al Arabiya Channel. Dr. Morrow and Habib Al Jifri then paid a visit to Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, where the former presented the UAE Minister with a copy of one of the prophetic covenants as a souvenir.

The Tabah Foundation has been keen on organizing these wide-ranging activities and events springing from its mission to “Re-enabling Islamic discourse to recover its ability to understand the real world context” and to propagate an international message highlighting that tolerance, coexistence, and respect of different faiths, human beings, and non-Muslim communities in the region is a genuine call launched since the days of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), and to clarify that what we are witnessing today in terms of murder and slaughtering of Muslims and non-Muslims alike amounts to a disfigurement of the commands of the Prophet (pbuh) and a deviation there-from.

Related Links

Video promoting the symposium

– News Release: A “Roadmap” for “Tolerance & Coexistence” from Abu Dhabi – Al Ittihad Newspaper .
– News Release: Returning to the Roots of Islam—A Necessity for the Umma’s Proegression – Al Bayan Newspaper.
– News release: Lecture in Abu Dhabi stresses awareness – about true Islam – The National.
– News Release: Islam is not against other religions, says scholar – Khaleej Times.
– Sky News Arabia Interview Video.
– Sky News Arabia Interview Transcript.
– Al Arabiya Channel Interview Video.

Taabah Foundation Senior Fellow presents at the Program on Medicine and Religion

On Sunday 3 August and Monday 4 August 2014, Tabah Senior Fellow, Jihad Hashim Brown, participated in the Initiative on Islam and Medicine Working Group at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics.
The Working Group convenes its sessions with support of the John Templeton Foundation. The objectives of this round were to “Review the conceptual definitions and major debates regarding what ‘health’ consists of with an eye towards considering the telos of medicine/public health and how it relates to human flourishing;” and, “Introduce the major concepts related to the science of medical prognostication, risk assessment, and population health epidemiology. Specifically we will focus on concepts of and the tools assess risk at the clinical (patient) and community levels.”

Brown in his paper presented on “the theological conceptualisation and ethico-legal definition of maslaha (public benefit and medical risk)”; as well as, “the relationship between maslaha (public benefit), maqasid (aims & purposes), and darurah (dire necessity)”.

Islam’s Ban on Child Combatants, Latest Article by Musa Furber

Tabah Fellow Musa Furber wrote an article concerning children serving as combatants. Children have been used as combatants by certain Muslim parties in recent and current conflicts, including Afghanistanthe BalkansIraqSyria, and Yemen. The use of child combatants—whether voluntary or coerced—contravenes the actions of the Prophet Mohammad ﷺ and the Shari‘ah.

Muslim scholars and leaders need to educate the general public concerning the unlawful status of these actions, and that they must cease supporting those who call for, or enable, the use of child combatants.

Full Article:

AlArabiya News – Islam’s Ban on Child Combatants

Seminar: The Rationality of Islamic Tradition within the Context of Contemporary Thought

Tabah Foundation held a seminar entitled ‘The Rationality of Islamic Tradition within the Context of Contemporary Thought.’ The seminar took place during the semi-annual meeting of Tabah’s Senior Scholars Council. It shed light on a recently released research publication by Tabah on postmodern thinking by Dr. Karim Lahham, Senior Research Fellow at Tabah Foundation and Barrister-at-law of the Inner Temple, UK.

Featuring some of the most-renowned Islamic personalities, the participants were led by the former Grand Mufti of Egypt and member of Al-Azhar’s Council of Senior Scholars Dr. Ali Gomaa, Chief of the Board of Tabah Foundation Al-Habib Ali Al-Jifri, the Libyan Ambassador to UAE and chairman of Kalam Research and Media Dr. Aref Nayed, in addition to a number of professors from Zayed University and a distinguished group of academics and competent experts.

Al-Habib al-Jifri inaugurated the event by pointing out that the region is standing at a cultural juncture, the early introductions of which date back three or four hundred years ago. He asserted that during the current period we are witnessing fast-paced cultural transformation accompanied by a state of comatose blanketing attempts of renewal stemming from our scholarly tradition which are based on an accurate conception of changes in human reality. He added that the current Islamic discourse faces a problem with regard to the possibility of the continuation of its connectedness with its uninterrupted chain of transmission (whether in relation to narration, comprehension, or moral purification); and with regard to the scholarly gradualism which the Muslim community had grown accustomed to being tied to an established methodology, along with an ability to confront present-day challenges.

The seminar was facilitated by Sheikh Usamah al-Azhari, director of the Office of The Message of al-Azhar. Dr. Karim Lahham—the author of the research work in discussion—delivered a paper addressing the consequences of the concepts upon which modernists base their understanding of Islam. He criticized modernists’ raucous voice in their calls for reform, along with epistemological and philosophical poorness in terms of founding real intellectual reform.

Dr. Lahham’s paper concentrated on the extent of such modernists’ comprehension of philosophical principals, along with their accuracy in applying them to the Islamic tradition. He admonished the modernists and postmodernists for incarceration in an “ideological cave” of assumptions. This condition spawned a host of barriers separating Muslims from their own legacy—a legacy that is replete with discerning research methodologies. The gravity of this condition stems from its reduction of faith to religious rituals, and to the political domain through the imposition of epistemological barriers between man and religion. Dr. Lahham warned against the danger of the grave attempts by modernists resulting in the absence of a multitude of re-categorizing sciences, along with their modus operandi in terms of structuring concepts and philosophies based upon scientific rules. At the end of the paper, he called for a comprehensive reconsideration of the relational configuration between traditional sciences and for re-extracting the hidden gems lying latent in the Muslim intellect, including its catalog of sciences and disciplines.

Sheikh Saeed Fouda, a researcher in the discipline of kalam (scholastic theology), commented on Dr. Lahham’s lecture by commending the depth of its substance, objectives and outcomes, and its endeavor to deconstruct the intellectual, philosophical and epistemological foundations upon which the modernist intellectual school of thought depends. Sheikh Fouda also referred to features of contemporary philosophy that holistically addresses human beings—rather than human intellect—as a referential yardstick for understanding the world. This is a characteristic feature of postmodern thinking; a symptom that we have been suffering from particularly with respect to the postulation that the mind does not exist by itself, as argued by Nietzsche. The latter considered reason as one of the causes of humanity’s regress. Sheikh Fouda highlighted that postmodern thinking does not acknowledge the existence of a priori concepts and that its proponents describe reason, in their own words, as an idol that must be shattered.

Following Sheikh Fouda’s critique, the floor was opened for comments from the attendance. Dr. Ali Gomaa initiated the session by addressing the definitions of reason offered by Muslim in addition to the “four pillars of reason”: the Brain, sound senses, sensed reality and prior information. This quadrate explains the content and conditions and basis of taklif (moral and legal responsibility) in Islam. Dr. Gomaa confirmed the importance of the role of previous information, with its two sources being revelation and the world. For Muslim scholars, knowledge is taken from both books of revelation; the holy Quran, and the world. Through understanding both books of revelation Muslim scholars credited revelation as a source of knowledge. Muslims learn from both books knowing there is no contradiction between them. In case where a contradiction arises they know it is due to their understanding of the Qur’anic text not the sacred text itself. This is what drove Islamic scholars to divide the Qur’anic text—all of which is definitive in terms of its authenticity (qat‘i al-thubut)—into two categories: definitive in meaning (qat‘i al-dalalah), and speculative in meaning (dhanni al-dalalah). Revelation is therefore neither superior nor antithetical to reason, but rather it is one of its sources. The same applies to the universe: it is a source of reason and if a contradiction arises, the universe then takes precedence over speculative understanding of the scriptural text. Dr. Gomaa also dealt with the topic of the collective consciousness or mind (al-‘aql al-jam‘i), which is considered an essential and indispensible element in the structure of the intellect.

Dr. Aref Nayedh’s comment followed, shedding light on modernists’ incoherence, which he claimed to be no more than a new kind of sophistry and fallacy in their approach in interpretation of Quran. The so-called “Qur’anist school” _which considers Quran the only source of Tashree’_ subscribes to this approach. It is noticeable in this school’s literature—as well as in postmodern literature—that the scriptural text is analyzed through certain mechanisms such as metaphorical interpretation, semiotics, hermeneutics and structuralism. The interpretive approach of this school has slipped into error as a result of its examination of the relations between meanings without referring to the relevant circumstantial prerequisites, like the prerequisites of the historical condition (for example: on the issue of circumstances of revelation, or asbāb al-nuzul), prerequisites of the accumulative condition, or what is known as the collective mind. Extirpating Qur’anic text out of its historical context, from the Prophetic Sunnah which is its interpretative reference, and from the uninterrupted chains of narrations, has led them to falling into such fallacy during their attempt to interpret Qur’anic texts. In the concluding section of his comment, Dr. Nayedh stressed the dire need for the contribution of the discipline of kalam and to connecting this discipline with contemporary philosophies.

Dr. Ali El-Konaissi, Professor of Philosophy and Islamic Studies at Zayed University, followed by commenting that Muslim philosophers—led by al-Kindi—expanded in their engagement with theories of the mind. They interpreted, explained and extracted—not to mention corrected—all ideas on the mind derived from Greek philosophy after first translating Greek works into Arabic. He cited the example of the al-Kindi’s critique and amending Aristotle’s theory of hylomorphism in the work De Anima which was translated into Arabic under the title Fi maheyat al-‘aql (On the Essence of the Intellect). Aristotle asserts that the intellect is divided into two types: an active, and a passive type. In response, and based on his deep comprehension of the essence of religion, al-Kindi reclassified the intellect in a new way. He argued instead that there are four types of the intellect: (1) the primary (or First) intellect, which belongs to God; (2) the potential intellect, which is the human intellect and the tool of connection to primary intellect; (3) the acquired, and; (4) the demonstrative intellect.

The paper presented is part of the Tabah Papers series produced by Tabah Research. The objective of the paper is to probe the conceptual structures upon which the writings of postmodernist thinkers are founded. The work concludes that any thinker or writer is the heir of the gamut of concepts or conceptual orders which surface in his or her writings whether consciously or otherwise. Any given concept is neither an orphan nor has no origin. Thus, the validity of any concept largely relies on the origin of its genealogy. Consequently, the value of any idea is commensurate to the value of its origin. This is what the researcher has attempted to trace and evaluate in his work.

To read the presented paper, please click here

Tabah Participates in Abu Dhabi Tawdheef Recruitment Exhibition

Tabah Foundation for Islamic Studies participated for the first time in the recruitment exhibition, Tawdheef 2013, which took place in the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre from Jan 29-31.

During the event, which enjoyed participation from a large number of institutions and appealed to a broad segment of job seekers, Tabah sought to attract the most talented and qualified individuals, especially from among UAE citizens, to recruit for open positions. With this approach, Tabah Foundation hopes to achieve its human resources objectives by increasing its level of Emiratization and by encouraging local talent in promising fields.

Tabah Foundation is also working on improving the professional benefits it provides to its employees, both national and non-national. To that end we have contracted one of the biggest international companies in the field of human resources, which is conducting research on the status of the job market in Abu Dhabi, including the analysis of the benefits provided to employees. It also identifies methodological and international criteria and mechanisms for employment.

The Islam women were promised – Article posted by Musa Furber in Washington Post

Article posted by Sh Musa Furber, research fellow at Tabah Foundation, published by The Washington Post in January 2012:

The horrific and heartbreaking news from India is tragic enough on its own: two alleged victims of gang rape have died, one a 23 year old woman who succumbed to her wounds and a 17 year old girl who took her own life after being pressured to marry one of her alleged attackers.

These stories are awful enough on their own, but sadly they also bring to mind other similar cases we saw during 2012.

These cases include the 16 year old Moroccan girl who took her life after being ordered by the court to marry the man who allegedly raped her, and similar cases in Jordan involving 14 and 15 year old girls. In these and other cases, the societies involved – and their legal systems – advocated pardoning rapists if a deal could be struck for them to marry their victim. Morocco has its clause 457 (the origins of which go back to French law and is said to be intended only for cases of consensual premarital sex), and Jordan has its article 308. Similar laws exist in other countries where, apparently, the honor of a woman reflects on her family in a perverse way where, where the stigma of rape outweighs the sanctity of that woman’s life and dignity.

When I read of these cases I am always left baffled at how Muslims can support allowing a rapist to obtain a pardon by marrying his victim, often by pressuring their victims and their families to cooperate. As a specialist in Islamic law, I know that these cases are egregious violations of what Islam teaches on the rights of victims, the definition of justice and the meaning of marriage.

The Islamic worldview is clear concerning the rights and obligations of self-defense and defending others from attacks against person and dignity. This is especially the case for sexual assault, where a woman is obligated to fend off her attacker and bystanders are obligated to come to her assistance. Obviously, the fulfillment of such an obligation depends greatly on the circumstances she finds herself in, her state of mind, her ability to fend him off, and so forth. Regardless of whether or not she manages to even attempt to do so, it is still rape, and must be treated as such. Some scholars advocate that a woman’s self-defense extends even to the after-effects of an attack, including restoring their feeling of security, treating the emotional trauma, and aborting a pregnancy resulting from rape. Advocates of this position argue that this is consistent with the noble purposes of the sacred law that place protection of the life and the intellect of the woman above protection of lineage, property, and reputation. The sacred law is also clear that marriage is a relationship based on affection, mutual respect, intimacy, trust, kindness, and a refuge from uncontrolled carnal lust.

Compelling a rape victim to marry her rapist (alleged or convicted) denies her the opportunity to defend herself and exposes her to additional attacks against her person, intellect and dignity. It also forces her to live in a relationship that is based upon hatred, alienation, violation, and abuse, and it rewards her attacker for his violence.

Exhortations to mercy are ingrained in Islam. Pardoning rapists who agree to marry their victim and compelling their victims to do so are mercy’s antithesis.

We have already seen that compelling victims to marry their rapists has the potential to lead to suicide. Forcing victims to marry in such a way places family dignity above her own life, intellect, and dignity – which is opposite the order of priorities assigned by the sacred law. How can one reconcile this inversion of priorities with the Islamic worldview which views spreading corruption and the wrongful taking of a single life each as akin to slaying mankind in its entirety, and the saving of a single life akin to saving mankind in its entirety (Q5:32)?

Some advocates do so on the grounds that it is cultural and falls within Islam’s flexibility towards local culture and custom, and that local culture places such a great shame on rape (whether alleged or proven) that the victim is better off married to her rapist (alleged or convicted) or better off dead. While it is true that the sacred law does include a degree of flexibility regarding local culture and custom, it is limited to those that do not contradict the sacred law or subvert its noble purposes. In short, the sacred law affirms practices that agree but rejects practices that contract or subvert it.

Other advocates suggest that the laws are intended to apply only in cases of consensual sex, such as when couples do so in hopes of forcing their families to allow them to marry, and that when reported, the act is recorded as rape. Using this term to somehow protect society from the shame of admitting that women engage in consensual premarital sex opens a life-destroying door of forcing women who were already wronged to an even greater wrong, often leading them to take their own life out of anguish and desperation.

There is something deeply wrong when a Muslim society views the shame of a single rape to outweigh facilitating the spread of corruption and the wrongful taking of life.

The earliest generation of Muslims took pride in their compliance to the Quran’s injunction to abandon female infanticide, an act that was often done to prevent shame to the family. Thus for centuries, Muslims have taken pride in their contributions to the rising status of women. But what pride is there in abandoning burying one’s young daughters in the sand only for them to grow to adulthood wishing that they had been? These tragically frequent stories of women violated over and over again can only be described as the perversion of Islam. Unfortunately, by Muslims themselves.

*This piece first appeared in the Washington Post (USA) and then in The Huffington Post (USA) with the writer’s permission. An Arabic version appeared in Midan Misr (Egypt).

Sheikh Musa Furber is a research fellow at the Tabah Foundation and a qualified issuer of legal edicts (fatwas). He received his license to deliver legal edicts from senior scholars at the Egyptian House of Edicts including the Grand Mufti of Egypt. Twitter: @musafurber

As published in The Washington Post

Chairman of Tabah Management Board participates in the 6th Annual Convention of Islamic Callers to Islam

As part of the activities and proceedings of the Sixth Annual Convention of Muslim Da‘wah Workers held in Tarim-Hadramawt – attended by over a thousand da‘wah workers worldwide including members of Tabah’s work personnel – Al-Habib Ali AlJifri (Chairman of Tabah’s Management Board) presented a lecture under the convention’s fourth theme entitled “Changes and Events: how should the da‘wah worker understand and deal with them”.

Al-Habib Ali shared the session and platform with Shaykh Umar ibn Husain al-Khatib, and in his speech he pointed out the themes classifying the challenges confronting the da‘wah worker and Islamic discourse in an environment characterized by changes and events, identifying four key themes in the process:

1. Religious illiteracy.
2. Problems of Islamic discourse in its interactions vis-a-vis thought and movements.
3. Civilizational identity.
4. Cultural openness.

His participation in the convention came under one of four themes around which this year’s convention centered:
• ‘Rules and Recommended Practices in Da‘wah and Media Work’.
• ‘Cooperation and Coordination between Media Institutions’.
• ‘Changes and Events: how should the da‘wah worker understand and deal with them’.
• ‘The Role of the Da‘wah Worker in the Context of His Family’.

It is worth mentioning that the convention was attended by a large number of da‘wah workers, preachers and teachers. The attendance by females active in the field of da‘wah was particularly noteworthy and they numbered around 200 da‘wah workers. The convention also coincided with sixteenth annual commemoration of the opening of Dar al-Mustafa in Tarim-Hadramawt held every year on the 29th of Dhul Hijjah.

Two articles by Musa Furber, published in several Arabic and International newspapers

Two articles by Sheikh Musa Furber (a resident research fellow at the Foundation) entitled “What is a Fatwa? Who can give them?” and “Libyan Graves” appeared in Washington Post and Egypt Independent respectively with subsequent reprints of the first on Ahram Online, the website of Sheikh Ali Gomaa and Midan Masr (the latter includes the original English and their own Arabic translation) and a reprint of the second on Al Arabiya. “What is a Fatwa?” was in response to all those who put themselves forward to issue fatwas (religious edicts) while not being qualified to do so, and then pass legal judgments in a rash and reckless fashion even if they claim to be from among its qualified practitioners, and “Libyan Graves” in response to the latest spate of attacks on the graves of renowned Muslim scholars and sages by Salafi hardliners.

 

Habib Ali tours UK for -Muhammad: Master of Change, Upon him be Peace-

Habib Ali arrived in London on 2nd May after a three year absence. The tour was being organised by Radical Middle Way, a nonprofit organisation based in London that works with the Muslim community in the UK. Habib Ali visited numerous cities, including London, Leicester, Birmingham, Bradford, Nottingham, Peterborough, Cambridge and Cardiff.

The tour included a two day intensive course in the newly built Harrow Mosque, in north-west London, on book 20 of the Ihya ulum al-Din of Imam al-Ghazali, titled “The Etiquettes of Living and Prophetic Character.” As part of Habib Ali’s continued outreach to other faith communities, a number of interfaith meetings were arranged, including a frank discussion on the future of Christian minorities in the Middle East, which took place at Lambeth Palace and was attended by representatives of the Anglican, Catholic and Coptic Churches, as well as various leaders from the Muslim community. In Leicester, Habib Ali spoke at the St. Philip’s Centre, a Church that is well renowned for it’s extensive interfaith work and which is located next to the Umar ibn al-Khattab Mosque. The topic was lessons to be learnt from the life the Prophet Jesus on being a good neighbor and coexistence.

The theme of the tour was “Muhammad: Master of Change, Upon him be Peace,” and a number of talks and reminders were offered on this topic in the various cities. You can hear some of them through the audio page. As part of the cultural aspect of the tour, Habib Ali delivered a discourse on poetry and spirituality at the “Day of Poetry” event at SOAS university in London. There were also presentations by Shaykh Abdul Hakim Murad and Shaykh Muhammad Bashuaib, as well as recitals of classical and contemporary poetry by various artists.

As part of the community outreach aspect of the tour, visits were made to the Cambridge Muslim College which was founded by Shaykh Abdul-Hakim Murad, a new mosque being built by Shaykh Habib al-Rahman in Bradford, Jamia al-Karam Institution in Nottingham, and the Yemeni Mosque in Cardiff, where Habib Ali also took part in the revival of the community procession, a tradition that had been started by the scholars and community of Cardiff in the previous century but had been stopped for over 50 years. You can view photos of the event below.

Habib Ali also took part in the first dedicated conference on Muslim nonprofit work in the UK, organised jointly by Radical Middle Way and An-Nisa Society at the Muslim College in Ealing, London. Habib Ali delivered a lecture on the concept of faith (iman) and service (khidma) and sought to address the needs and requirements of those who work in the field. He also met with Elizabeth Huntley at the event, director of Theos, a think thank based in London dedicated to creating dialogue around faith and society, and shared perspectives with her on Tabah Foundation and it’s mission.

After the conclusion of the tour Habib Ali participated in the launch of Tabah Foundation’s new release, “Muhammad Shahrur’s Cargo Cult,” in Oxford University. He delivered a presentation on Tabah Foundation and it’s vision. The trip was brought to a close thereafter and Habib Ali departed for Brussels.

Related Links

Tour’s Official Website