Doha, Qatar: Several experts and researchers reviewed the main historical joints and challenges that the Arab Majlis went through during different periods in light of the digital development that the world witnessed.
They stressed on the importance of the Majlis as a cultural incubator in spreading cultural and human values and heritage between generations to raise society and consolidate and enhance the concept of awareness. This came during a symposium on cultural incubators - Majlis as a model, held by the Department of Islamic Research and Studies at the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs at the end of the activities of the first cultural season.
It is part of series of cultural project and scientific and intellectual seminars (Umma symposium) in the hall of the Sheikh Abdulla Bin Zaid Al Mahmoud Islamic Cultural Center, in the presence of Director of Islamic Affairs Department at the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Khalid bin Shaheen Al Ghanim.
During the symposium, experts and researchers referred to the concept of the term and what it is, its social, literary, and scientific function throughout history, its role in achieving knowledge accumulation and preserving customs and cultures across generations, and how the change in lifestyles affect the continuity of the Majlis in the present time.
In the same context, Member of Shura Council H E Khalid bin Ghanim Al Maadheed said that societies today face unprecedented challenges in light of modern means of communication, stressing the importance of strengthening national identity, which derives values from religion, language, common history, and heritage.
He indicated that the process of strengthening the components of our identities in future generations and transferring them to them requires the consolidation of the concept of awareness, pointing to the importance of socialization, which is the continuous process in which the adult generation transfers values to the new generation.
In turn, Dr. Muhammad Khalifa Al Kuwari, a faculty member at the College of Arts and Sciences at Qatar University (QU), said that the Majlis played a vital role in people’s lives, even if this role differed between the past and the present as a result of the developments that took place in society due to many factors that occurred in the aspects of life.
He noted that the Majlis handles family gatherings, which at its inception was known as the tribal Majlis that handles all the life affairs of it, explaining that the Majlis today have branched out in light of the development that we have witnessed in the Bedouin life through the transition to modern cities.
For his part, Expert Heritage in the Ministry of Culture Mohammad Saeed Al Balushi affirmed that Arab and Muslim writers and historians realised the importance of these councils and their cultural value, so they wrote books about scientific and literary facts, recalling the book Councils of Scholars by Abdulrahman Al Zajaji, in which he presented aspects of dozens of scientific Majlis’ held in the courts of some caliphs.
He explained that the roots of these councils go back to the history of the Arabs before Islam, as it is known that the Arabs had Majlis’ in which they gathered to appeal to poetry and exchange news and conspiracies, and called those Majlis’ the house.
