WHAT OTHERS SAY: Multi-Billion Dollar Endorsement of Arab Islamic Renaissance

- By Gitanjali Bakshi

November, 2007

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On the 28th of October His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, inaugurated a two-day Knowledge Conference, in which he underscored the importance of re-creating an Arab Islamic Renaissance in the Middle East and building a knowledge society that will help to bring about desired reform and change in the region.

At the conference he announced his intentions to allocate the $10 billion that he had generously donated for the purpose of knowledge development, toward the following projects:

• A Knowledge Complex, designed along the lines of Baghdad’s House of Wisdom (Bait Al Hikma) that will undertake steps to increase translation into Arabic.
• Improvement of University Education which includes teacher training and scholarship programmes.
• On-line programs for women who have to work from home
• Business programmes to encourage young entrepreneurs in the region and
• Charity programs that coordinate funding in varied sectors
  

These are precisely the recommendations we expressed in our reports and articles as part of our Arab Islamic Renaissance Initiative. This initiative is an integral component of our larger efforts to find solutions for sustainable peace and stability in the region. Qualitative development of the knowledge and education sector in the Arab world is an integral investment in the regions future. The re-creation of an Arab Islamic renaissance will positively reinforce Middle East relations with the Western world and help Arab countries to forge an identity for themselves in the global arena.

The history of our Arab Islamic Renaissance Initiative is marked by the following:

Strategic Foresight Group (SFG) first presented the concept of launching an Arab Islamic Renaissance Initiative at the Nelson Mandela Benefit Dinner in December 2005 (Dubai).

The idea was thoroughly discussed and put forward as a recommendation in our Third International Roundtable on Constructing Peace De-constructing Terror, held at the European Parliament on November 2006.

We further elaborated on and identified the possible elements needed to renew an Arab-Islamic Renaissance in our report “An Inclusive World: In which the West, Islam and the Rest have a Stake”, 2007.

In addition to this, SFG staff conducted interviews and wrote several articles advocating the theory of knowledge creation in the Middle East.

Strategic Foresight Group has also consulted pioneers in the region such as Dr. Ahmed Mohamed Ali: President of the Islamic Development Bank, Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan as well as Her Highness Sheikha Mozah of Qatar and other leaders on steps required to instill knowledge development in the Arab world.

The importance of an Arab Islamic Renaissance was also addressed as one of the top twenty issues in our forthcoming report on Emerging Trends: Global Security and Economy.

Although we never held consultations with HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and do not claim to have informed His Highnesses decision, this is yet another example of how SFG is able to look into the future and offer practical and ground-reality solutions on issues of global significance.