The World Organization for al-Azhar Graduates organized a workshop themed: “The Concept of Jahiliyyah” for a number of international students from different nationalities. The workshop was lectured by Prof. Abdul Fattah al-‘Awari, member of the Islamic Research Academy and former Dean of the Faculty of Usul al-Din, Cairo branch, al-Azhar University.
The workshop, held at the Organization’s headquarters in Cairo, aimed to correcting the misconceptions related to the concept of Jahiliyyah (ignorance) and demonstrating the proper understanding of it in the light of al-Azhar moderate approach. This will contribute to promoting the international students’ intellectual and religious awareness, establishing the values of moderation and confronting the misconceptions.
To that end, the workshop also discussed Prof. al-‘Awari’s book “The Concept of Jahiliyyah”, published by the Organization’s Center of Refuting the Extremist Thinking. The book explains the term “Jahiliyyah” according to Quran and Sunnah, how jurists and scholars tackled it, in comparison to how the extremist groups misused it. The book also illustrates the precise difference between the meticulous Islamic methodology in understanding the religious terms and the extremists’ intellectual demagogy in tackling concepts, addressing issues for the sake of deception and misleading.
This workshop comes within the framework of the Organization’s keenness to qualify the international students, academically and intellectually, and to enhance the right understanding of the religious and intellectual issues.
