Manama: The State of Qatar, represented by the Ministry of Endowments (Awqaf) and Islamic Affairs, participated virtually in the 40th meeting of the Standing Committee of Experts in Islamic Affairs and Endowments of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, chaired by the Kingdom of Bahrain on Wednesday, as part of reinforcing Gulf cooperation and integration in the areas of Islamic affairs and endowment.
The Awqaf delegation was headed by HE Undersecretary of the Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs Dr. Sheikh Khalid bin Mohammed bin Ghanem Al-Thani, while Director of the Department of Islamic Affairs Mohammed Jabr Al Mannai, alongside representatives of the authoritative agencies from the GCC states, participated in the meeting.
The meeting discussed a raft of working papers and GCC-submitted proposals with the aim of advancing Islamic and endowment action, as well as its social and developmental impact.
The subjects laid out included the GCC Endowment Week as a joint awareness initiative to project the civilizational and developmental role of endowment, in addition to devising a national indicator to gauge the endowment impact in society, thereby contributing to fostering governance and transparency, as well as scaling up the efficiency of endowments administration.
In addition, the meeting drilled down on the developed perspective of the mechanism of pitching and sharing expertise in the field of Islamic affairs among the member states, thereby enhancing the imparting of knowledge and exchanging successful expertise.
The gathering further deliberated on the architectural identity of mosque minarets between heritage and innovation in the quest to strike a balance between maintaining the time-honored Islamic nature and keeping up with state-of-the-art architectural requirements.
As such, the participants noted that it is of foremost priority to unify visions and concerted efforts among the GCC states on issues of common concern to help develop institutional work in the fields of Islamic affairs and endowment, culminating in their role in the service of society and deepening moderate Islamic values.
