Blessed Eid and registration for our webinar/summer school 2020 opens

Language: 
English
Sent On: 
Fri, 2020-05-22
Year: 
2020
Newsletter Number: 
20

The Eid-al-fitr, the feast at the end of Ramadan starts on Saturday May 23. We would like to make use of this occasion to congratulate all our Muslim friends with this feast. It was a Ramadan no one ever experienced before. In previous years it was always very communal and festive. Now people had to stay home during this most important Muslim month of the year.

 

Leaders of the African leadership training webinar organized by CAWU in cooperation with Refuge Egypt, Comboni Fathers and Sisters and the Egyptian Moral Rearmament Association.

 

CAWU has been organizing summer schools in 2018 and 2019. We were planning to do so as well in 2020 but the covid-19 virus changed our plans into a summer webinar. The title for this year’s summer school/webinar is: Muslims and Christians contributing to building up the future of Egyptian society. Period: June 22 – June 24, 2020 (three full days, very condensed!). Applications are possible until June 10, 2020.

 

We want to highlight in this summer webinar the many excellent initiatives in the field of intercultural dialogue. The Center for Arab-West Understanding has built, following the building of the Electronic Network for Arab-West Understanding (launched by HRH Prince el-Hassan bin-Talal [al-Ḥassan bin Ṭalāl] in 2008), a very large electronic English language database about the role of religion in the wider context of contemporary Egypt and other Arab countries.

 

Students will be informed about plans to create a network of recognized Ambassadors for Dialogue. This will be further implemented through a proposal we have made for the Anna Lindh Foundation. Ambassadors for Dialogue should be recognized by a network of organizations that are all working towards the goal of dialogue. Ambassadors for Dialogue will be mentioned on a designated website. Their status of Ambassador for Dialogue is linked to a strict ethical code of how to promote the message of dialogue and linked to how active they are in promoting the message of dialogue in social media. The summer webinar is culminating in a presentation of the document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together and discussion of possible actions by the Ambassadors for Dialogue based on this document.

 

Profile of applicants

 

The webinar/summer school in Christian-Muslim Understanding invites participants who have a significant interest in the future of Christian-Muslim relations in Egypt and the Middle East and are ready to be prepared to become ambassadors for dialogue, promoting the common good in social media and other venues. We are seeking Muslims and Christians who want to think seriously and creatively about interfaith relations for a prosperous future for Egypt and other countries in the region. Our webinar/summer school will be facilitated by experts in Muslim-Christian dialogue from the participating institutions. Egyptian participants are expected to be bi-lingual, English and Arabic. The main language of this webinar is English. Applications need to be made on-line here: https://forms.gle/WE2d2z4MesmKfcMM9. In case of questions write: [email protected] Space is limited so we invite candidates to apply as soon as possible.

 

Certificates

 

We provide certificates to participants who have truly participated. We will check this through seeing your face online (so no ‘multitasking’ by having the sound on but video off) and your responses to speakers.

 

Speakers/organizers at this moment are:

 

Prof. Dr. Tarek Mansour Mohammed [Ṭāriq Manṣūr Muḥammad], Ain Shams University

 

Dr. Kamal Boraiqa [Kamāl Burayqaʿ], General Coordinator of the Center for Dialogue at the Azhar, head of the Observation and Suggestion Committee in Bayt al-ʿĀʾila.

 

Prof. Dr. Muhammed Abdel Ati [Muḥammad ʿAbd al-ʿĀṭī], coordinator Bayt al-ʿĀʾila (House of the Family)

 

Dr. Matthew Anderson, lecturer at the Alexandria School of Theology, 2009 to 2011. Since 2018 he is Assistant Teaching Professor in Islamic Studies, Georgetown University, USA

 

Saleem Wassef [Salīm Waṣīf], consultant dialogue committee Anglican Diocese of Egypt, former director-general in the Egyptian Ministry of Education

 

Dr. Giuseppe Scattolin, Comboni Fathers Egypt

 

Cornelis Hulsman, co-founder Center for Arab-West Understanding, director Center for Intercultural Dialogue and Translation, Cairo.

 

Dr. Richard Gauvain, associate professor of political science at the British University of Egypt (BUE). 

 

Prof. Abdallah Schleifer, emeritus professor Mass Communication and founding director of the Adham Center at the American University in Cairo, one of the 18 original founders of the Common World movement, senior fellow at the Arab-West Foundation, the Netherlands.

 

Prof. Dr. Harald Suermann, Director Institute of Missiology, Missio Aachen, Germany. Prof. Suermann spoke in March 2009 at Arab-West Report about the earliest Christian sources about the first Muslims coming to their countries. See: https://www.arabwestreport.info/en/year-2009/week-8/2-seventh-century-documents-about-arrival-islam-egypt

 

Please apply as soon as possible,

 

 

May 22, 2020

 

Cornelis Hulsman, editor-in-chief Arab-West Report