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 Wednesday, stressing 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 Endowments (Awqaf) and Islamic Affairs at the end of the activities of the first cultural season, as part of its 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 HE Director of Islamic Affairs Department at the Ministry of Endowments 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, as well as the impact of modern means of communication on the inherited cultural dimension of the message of the Majlis and the possibility of preserving the role of the Majlis as cultural incubators for the individual and society.
In the same context, HE Member of Shura Council 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.
His Excellency 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.
He added that the issue of socialization transfers the individual from a biological being to a social being that has the value that determines inclinations, tendencies, and attitudes, and therefore the behavior, pointing out that socialization has means used for this purpose, such as family, school, friends, relatives, the Majlis, and the work environment.
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. Its role is still very important in the life of these cities, which were associated with areas specific to the Qatari tribes from north to south of Qatar, he added.
For his part, Expert Heritage in the Ministry of Culture Mohammad Saeed Al Balushi affirmed that Arab and Muslim writers and historians realized 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, princes, ministers, and scholars, and the discussions and debates that took place in language, literature, history, and jurisprudence, in addition to the book Similarities and Isotopes in Grammar by the historian and writer Jalal Al-Din Al-Suyuti, in which he devoted a large chapter to talking about what he called debates, councils, fatwas, correspondence and correspondence.
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, the example is Dar Al Nadwa, which was established next to the Kaaba as a headquarters for organizing the affairs of the Kaaba.
The series of cultural incubators occupied an entire season of the nation's cultural symposium, in which the importance of four axes expressed libraries, educational institutions, mosques, and councils, because these incubators or cultural incubators played a major role in promoting culture, spreading science, strengthening scientific ties, enlightening societies, educating their minds, and developing their perceptions.
Source: Qatar News Agency