Doha: Ibn Khaldon Center for Humanities and social sciences at Qatar University (QU), in collaboration with Hamad bin Khalifa University (HBKU), kicked off a three-day international conference on Religion in Constitutions within a Global Context: Historical, Political, Legal, and Cultural Dimensions on January 24.
The first session of the conference covered the topic "The historical and cultural dimensions of the religious issue in the constitutions of the nations in the world."
The conference was opened by Prof Mariam Al Maadeed, Vice-President for Research and Postgraduate Studies.
She explained the importance of this conference, noting that it deals with an important substantive topic, constitutions, and their relationship with people’s culture and heritage.
This requires significant expertise, knowledge, and commitment of the cultural and social, moving from local to global contexts and producing clear ideas capable of achieving the center’s objectives in preserving the nation’s identity and cultural openness to the other.
She thanked the guests and their efforts in making it a successful event.
The opening session also included a speech by Dr. Nayef Nahar Al Shamari, Director of Ibn Khaldon Center for Humanities & Social Sciences.
He welcomed the participants and spoke about the conference’s importance, in which the fundamental issues will be discussed.
Dr. Nayef said: “The conference is part of the center’s strategy aiming to create a bridge for better understanding of the phenomena in which the relationship between national, constitutional and social issues and their relationship to religion will be discussed.
The conference will also discuss the controversy between religion and power in the tangible reality, the constitutional status of the religion according to different practices of some countries shedding light on the issues of external penetration in Islamic constitutions.”
Dr. Muhammad Al-Mukhtar Al-Shinqiti, Representative of the Scientific Committee, said during his speech that the conference theme had been his concern for years.
