International Center for Interfaith Dialogue Hosts Lord Woolf

20 Nov International Center for Interfaith Dialogue Hosts Lord Woolf

Dr. Ibrahim Saleh Al-Naimi welcomed the guests at the occasion of a lecture by Lord Woolf at Georgetown University Auditorium, SFS-Doha on Monday, 19 Nov. The lecture was titled “Rule of Law and the Interfaith World” and was jointly sponsored by the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue (DICID) and Georgetown University, Qatar.
There was a lecture held in the honour of the Lord Woolf’s visit at the Qatar University the following day.
Dr. Ibrahim welcome Lord Woolf as the outgoing President of the Qatar International Court & Dispute Resolution Centre where he served for the last six years and was previously the Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales, which at the time he served was the second-highest judicial position in the Courts of England and Wales and is now the highest position in the British legal system despite his efforts to keep the old system. He explained how his organisation Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue is the Middle East partner of the Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Studies based in Cambridge in the United Kingdom of which Lord Woolf is the patron. They have worked in close collaboration with each other in the past which has been mutually beneficial and he hoped this relationship will grow from strength to strength.
The question of the Rule of Law, explained Dr. Al-Naimi, and its relation to faiths and especially to interfaith understanding has been a crucial challenge for legal and religious thinkers because they are expected to develop reasonable ways to respond to threats to interfaith/intercultural harmony in today’s world. The most recent challenge which, a recurring one unfortunately, is the abuse of religious symbols and personalities. In today’s global village where we cannot help but live with different people from around the world and are dependent on each other for our mutual survival we have to very seriously tackle the issue of how to live together with mutual respect. As long as there will be human life there will be trouble makers who will disturb the peace of society and communal relations for their own benefits. We have to avoid as decent human beings to fall into the trap of being prey to these attention seekers. We also should consider whether it is time to develop a more complex universal legal framework for the protection of minorities, religious minorities being a case in point, whose core sacred symbols may also be protected from public abuse. May this type of legal creativity be related to the universal declaration of human rights which include freedom of religion as a core right? Can one freely belong to a religion when one’s most sacred religious symbol is publicly abused? These are questions that we are deeply troubled by these days as a Center at the forefront of Interfaith Dialogue in our own region and as a Center that cares for harmonious relations between communities everywhere in the world.
He hoped that through the partnership between the two institutions there could be a beginning of creating ‘an interfaith consensus’ on the ‘Rule of Law’ and the proper way to adhere to it within countries and internationally.
He also invited attendees of the lecture to the annual interfaith conference in the end of April in doha. This will be a celebration of the best practices of interfaith dialogue in the world where a cash prize will be given to the best project of a 100,000$. It is hoped that this will be a landmark event in history of interfaith relations.

Dr. Patrick Laude, who on behalf of Georgetown University, welcomed Lord Woolf and elaborated on his legal and academic achievements in areas as diverse as litigation and cricket law, penal reform and civil procedure, finance law and business ethics. Lord Woolf became a non-permanent judge of the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong in 2003, and the first President of the Qatar Financial Centre Civil and Commercial Court in 2006. He is also former Chairman of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and also chaired the Bank of England Financial Markets Law Committee.

Lord Woolf in his lecture compared his experiences in Hong Kong and Qatar. He said that the prosperity of both was dependent upon the reputation they have developed of having an independent judiciary and a legal system that has been independent and impartial. He was pleased to be involved in the legal developments of both these countries. He talked of the partnership between his interfaith institute in Cambridge, UK and DICID, Doha of which the lecture was the first outcome in a number of collaborative ventures, including a joint research project on interfaith dialogue which is going to be launched soon.

It is important to note that when what is being judged is whether a particular country should be treated as observing the rule of law, a holistic approach should usually be adopted when providing the answer. The parameters of at least many of the rights involved are not rigidly fixed. On the contrary, he indicated, the content of the rights that both collectively and individually have to be met before it can be said a country complies with the rule of law can vary according to particular circumstances in a particular country at a particular time. In many of these situations, the causes of strife are misinterpretation of important religious texts. In such situations, through education, the work of the Doha Interfaith Centre and the Woolf Institute, he hoped, can help in removing unjustified contentions of what the holy text requires.

The position is however frequently complicated by misunderstandings of what different faiths require or more likely are thought to require. The misunderstandings usually occur innocently due to ignorance, although they can result from the deliberate action on the part of those who wish to damage relations between different faiths. In both situations there is an important role for bodies such as DICID and the Woolf Institute to play by increasing knowledge of what are the requirements of the different faiths.

Of course, there should not be a hint of corruption affecting the judiciary. Any hint of any impropriety of this sort would irreparably damage both the individual judge and the Judiciary as a whole. Furthermore, justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. Change is always difficult, but it is far more difficult to manage in the absence of the structure which the rule of law provides. Happily, both the United Kingdom and Qatar are among countries which have been spared the strife from which other nations are currently suffering. Great hopes now exist for the future, thanks to the Arab Awakening. However, in this situation is it not important for those who are directly involved to remember the Holy Quran provides that “whenever you judge between people, you should judge with justice” (4:58) and “if you judge, judge with justice between them” (5:42). As the distinguished Muslim commentator, Al Bukhari, said, “The Prophet (peace and blessing of God be upon him)..no Arab has any superiority over a non-Arab nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over a black man, or the black man any superiority over the white man. You are all the children of Adam and Adam was created from clay.” (this has to be corrected. As the prophet says quoted in Sahih al-bukhari)

In the Memorandum between The Doha Interfaith Centre and the Woolf Institute there is set out a programme of activities which are going to carry out together. Will this not help to achieve better understanding between the different faiths? Lord Woolf asked the audience “Has not one God created us?” (Malachi II: 10).