Announcements

Benjamin Hale invited speaker at the launch the Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics, in Doha, Qatar

January 15, 2012

In January 2012, Benjamin Hale was an invited speaker at the launch of CILE, the Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics, in Doha, Qatar.

The launch took place at a one day conference on Islamic ethics, attended by Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser and a number of the world's most prominent scholars and thinkers, including Dr Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, President of the International Union of Muslim Scholars and Dr Aisha Al-Mannai, Dean of Shariah College in Qatar University and Vice-Chair of QFIS Board of Trustees.

The conference discussed the application of Islamic ethics in environment, gender, economics, education, art and bioethics. Various sessions saw input from an international panel that included His Excellency Dr Mustafa Ceric, the Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina and winner of the UNESCO Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize and world-famous musician Yusuf Islam, who discussed the topic of Islamic ethics and the arts.

Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser commented: “I have always and still am convinced, especially in light of the developments that occurred in the last decade of the third millennium, of the vital need to create a research foundation and a proficient pedagogy able to encompass the integrated system of the principles and values of central Islamic thought. This in turn should be presented to us Muslims and to others in a renewed vision and systematic approach that would dispel misinterpretations, exaggerations and their consequences in the forms of preconceptions and stereotypes which are contrary to the necessity of constructive dialogue”.

Her Highness added: “the message of this Center must be one based on universal and established principles, ones which integrates values and principles as part of the learning and the formation of individuals who can be agents of change”.

CILE is the first center, on a global scale, to focus on Islamic legislation and ethical thought. The center aims to gather the scholars of the text with the scholars of the context, and to reach out to a global and mixed audience of scholars, experts, students and the general public.

The center is under the guidance of Director Dr. Tariq Ramadan, renowned Muslim thinker, alongside Dr Jasser Auda, Deputy Director of CILE and founding member and member of the Executive Board of the International Union of Muslim Scholars. More Information.