Al-Maktoum Institute For Arabic and Islamic Studies, Courses, Why Us?

Why come to Al-Maktoum Institute?

Al-Maktoum Institute is a unique development as an academic centre for the study of Islam and Muslims.

SHAIKH HAMDAN BIN RASHID AL-MAKTOUM’S VISION: A NEW AGENDA Practical Models for Global Cross-Cultural Understanding and Co-operation

His Highness Shaikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and the UAE Minister for Finance and

Industry, is passionate in his desire to actively encourage productive, effective and civilised dialogue across cultures and to build bridges between communities and people based on common ground, mutual respect, and shared goals and interest. Indeed, this is the civilised way forward to enhance greater understanding and appreciation between the Arab and Muslim worlds and the west. In this regard, His Highness is setting an example for other world leaders to follow. As a man of vision, with a better world as a focus, HH Shaikh Hamdan works to achieve the implementation of practical models. Since 2001, one of his main focus has been the creation of mutually beneficial relationships between Dubai and Scotland. The first step to facilitate the implementation of Shaikh Hamdan’s vision and passion was the creation of Al-Maktoum Institute in 2001 in Dundee, Scotland – UK, which was officially opened by HH Shaikh Hamdan on 6 May 2002.

Al-Maktoum Institute was given the opportunity to work to pursue HH Shaikh Hamdan’s Vision for the twin pillars of education and multiculturalism which has helped the Institute to play a key role in building progressive links between Scotland and Dubai.

Al-Maktoum Institute also works to generate an atmosphere in which civilised debate, rather than a clash.

It works to build bridges between communities at all levels, in particular between people across the world at this crucial time by providing a unique and innovative academic environment and community for learning, teaching and research in the study of Islam and Muslims. This vision helps the Institute to establish its strategic agenda in the study of Islam and Muslims as post orientalist, post traditionalist and multicultural.

As a unique development at the academic level and as a post-orientalist institution that is working serve the communities and to promote a greater understanding of different religions and cultures, Shaikh Hamdan's vision is at the heart of Al-Maktoum Institute’s mission, aims, objectives, and structure. Indeed, the whole of the Institute’s work revolves around the implementation of Shaikh Hamdan’s innovative and creative vision.

One of the Institute’s aims is to provide a meeting point between the Western and Muslim worlds of learning, and to encourage and forge international links, scholarship and academic co-operation.

In our effort to achieve this, the Al-Maktoum Institute aspires not only to provide postgraduate teaching and research of the highest quality, but also to act as a national resource in the Scottish and UK context for consultation by government bodies, public organisations, industry, business and the media.

A very important element of the Institute’s teaching – reflected in our curricula, our research, and our ethos – is a commitment to pursuing a better understanding of multiculturalism and the issues that cultural and religious diversity provide in the twenty-first century globalised context.

Thus the Al-Maktoum Institute has established a Centre for Research on Multiculturalism and Islam and Muslims in Scotland as well as a think-tank called the Multiculturalism Research Unit under the directorship of Prof Malory Nye. The Al-Maktoum Institute is also pioneering the new field of inquiry of Islamicjerusalem Studies, and has the Centre for Islamicjerusalem Studies, under the direction of Professor Abd al-Fattah El-Awaisi.

Dundee Declaration: A New Agenda for the Study of Islam and Muslims Globally

This new agenda for the study of Islam and Muslims globally is fully mapped out in a document we produced in March 2004 titled the Dundee Declaration for the future Development of the study of Islam and Muslims. This Dundee Declaration emerged from a major International Symposium which was hosted by the Institute and organised together with the Islamic Universities League. The League has over a hundred members and Al-Maktoum Institute is the only one in the UK. It was a tremendous honour for us, as the newest member of the League, to host this gathering of international scholars.

The Dundee Declaration is an innovative and very important document which sets out in detail key issues for the field, stressing the importance for scholars engaged in this area to look to face the challenges of the future. It makes it clear that the study of Islam and Muslims must seek to develop and define itself as post-orientalist, post-traditional, multicultural, and interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary.

The Declaration also makes it clear that the current crisis in the contemporary Muslim world is the absence of co-operation between knowledge and power; and academic research and teaching in the study of Islam and Muslims should be based on a principal of mutual respect in which people of any faith can share together a common intellectual goal. (The full text of the Dundee Declaration is available at the Institute website in English and Arabic)

The Implementation of the Dundee Declaration

To reflect this strategic objective of post orientalist, post traditionalist, and multicultural approaches, the Institute, during 2004, has seen significant developments through a process of restructuring. These developments are also to address the exciting growth of the Institute, the needs and preferences of our local, national and international students, and the wider network of relationships which have been developed in the last three years.

In addition, since the drafting of the agenda for the future development of the study of Islam and Muslims as set out in Dundee Declaration, the Institute has now begun to take the leading role in the process of strategic planning for disseminating and implementing this new agenda.

Major Research Project on Study of Islam and Muslims in the UK

In line with the Institute’s strategic objective to develop the agenda of the Dundee Declaration and in order to find the intellectual ingredients for that debate, the Institute allocated funds for a significant research project in 2004 to investigate teaching and research in the study of Islam and Muslims in the UK.

Autumn 2006 sees the publication of a major report titled 'Time for Change' which will be disseminated widely among the academic community and policy makers and leaders.

This project makes a very important contribution to our understanding of the Study of Islam and Muslims at this critical stage, and highlights essential research findings to indicate the key issues that the discipline must face over the new few decades.

Forging International Academic Links, Scholarships and Collaborations

The Al-Maktoum Institute also believes that academic excellence can be achieved by forging international links and scholarship, particularly through working in partnership with other higher education establishments throughout the world.

Accordingly, the Institute will be working with our partner universities from across the world in the near future to find practical ways in which the new agenda of the Dundee Declaration may be developed and implemented worldwide.

In adddition to the Institute’s collaboration with the University of Aberdeen, we have to date signed Memoranda of Understanding with fifteen of the world’s leading universities. These are:

Europe
University of Frankfurt, Gemany
University of Aberdeen, Scotland
International Academy of Philosophy, Liechtenstein
University of Wurzburg, Germany

Africa
University of Gezira, Sudan
Cairo University, Egypt
Al-Azhar University, Egypt

The Gulf States
Zayed University, UAE
University of Qatar, Qatar
United Arab Emirates University, UAE
Arabian Gulf University, Bahrain
University of Abu Dhabi, UAE
Higher Colleges of Technology, UAE

Asia
Al-al Bayt University, Jordan
The University of Jordan, Jordan

South East Asia
University of Malaya, Malaysia

We are actively working to expand each of these relationships to help further the strategic objectives of the Institute around the world.

All these links will certainly help to enhance our teaching and research capabilities and ultimately will benefit our students. The Institute sees our links with instituitions whether locally, nationally or internationally as part and parcel of our efforts to serve the communities. The benefits from all the relationships that we form will ultimately be channelled back to the communities by one way or another. It will also help to promote Dundee and Scotland as home to a centre of excellence in the study of Islam and Muslims.

Research and Research Culture

Research is the underpinning activity at the Institute, and is at the top of the Institute’s agenda. We see our students as key stakeholders within the future development of our research culture. Our research is taken forward by a team of internationally renowned scholars. The establishment of the two unique research centres at the Institute as part of the Institute’s development strategy signifies the Institute’s commitment to the fields. These are also unique developments in academia and they undeniably provide the Institute with very distinctive capabilities and expertise in this field.

We work to support and enhance the research culture at the Institute through the following ways:

Annual international conferences and symposiums at the Institute on Islamicjerusalem Studies and Islamic Studies.
Regular Research Seminars and Postgraduate Research Seminars in the effort to further cultivate the thirst for knowledge and strengthen the scholarly culture with the Institute.
Two, three-day Annual Postgraduate Summer and Winter Workshops organised in May/June and January, to ensure that both our staff and students are up-to-date with recent and important development in our fields.
A Research Development Fund to assist our scholars and postgraduate research students in their research.
The Al-Maktoum Institute Academic Press was established to foster intellectual discourse in related fields by encouraging the publication of scholarly works and making them available to both the academic community and the general public,
His Highness Shaikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum has generously funded many scholarships which have given great benefits to young scholars from around the world. Currently, scholars from the Arab world, the Far East as well as Scotland are studying under the scheme.
The Institute has continuously invested in the Library with the aim of making it a well-equipped resource centre.
All these are to help the Institute achieve its aim of fostering excellence in teaching and research.

Multiculturalism

Al-Maktoum Institute is not a religious organisation. We are an academic higher education institution examining the fields in the study of Islam and Muslims.

As an academic institute that promotes a greater understanding of different religions and cultures in a multicultural context, for the benefit of the wider community, and to build bridges between the Muslim and Western worlds at this crucial time, multiculturalism remains the centre of our vision and structure.

Our multicultural ethos is visibly translated and implemented in our day-to-day operation. Our staff and students come from diverse national and cultural backgrounds including Muslims and non-Muslims.

We are also working practically with many areas of contemporary Scottish society to develop a better picture of a Scotland which is integrated as both ‘one nation and many cultures’, for example our links with health and education authorities, and within the wider communities

Creation of a learning Environment and Community

We are very proud that within just three years the Institute has created a learning environment and community with a friendly atmosphere and which addresses the diverse needs of Al-Maktoum Institute family. This includes providing facilities to our students and staff, Annual Lunch/Dinner, and the three-day Annual Postgraduate Taught and Research Students Induction workshop organised in September.

The Institute campus also has been developed to allow closer interaction between staff and students. We feel that this close bond will help to foster a better environment in which academia and proper understanding can flourish.

Dundee Declaration
Dundee Declaration Arabic