Davotoglu Lecture in Jamiah Naleemiah

One of the Best Lectures Ever!

Ahmet Davotuglu lecture at Jamiah Naleemiah

One time Turkish premier Ahmet Davotuglu delivered one of the most memorable lectures to an audience comprising of Sri Lankan Muslim intellectuals and Islamic students and scholars. That was when he spoke on Role of Muslim Intellectuals in Community Building at Jamiah Naleemiah on 9^th August 2017.

Professor Davotuglu who served in the International Islamic University of Malaysia before he took up the office of Prime Minister of Turkey was one of the few scholars who provided the intellectual leadership to the making of modern Islamic Turkey.

Prof. Davotuglu stressed the importance of building a strong base of Muslim intellectuals to contend with growing Islamophobic sentiments in the West especially. He recalled an occasion when he was invited by the Vatican to speak on Islamic views on coexistence. The speakers before him, mainly of Catholic background, were decrying so-called Muslim atrocities against Christian people and places in the Middle East.  They were of course speaking about extremist groups that had nothing to do with Islam. When his turn came, he reminded the audience that it was only in the Muslim World where you will find a church, mosque and synagogue side by side, be it in Istanbul, Marrakesh or elsewhere in the Middle East.

He asked the audience to name a place in Christian Europe where one could find these places of worship as part of its original architecture. There was a pause, and one person from the audience stood up, and said “Yes. Sarajevo!”. Prof.Davotuglu replied “Of course, because it was built by the Muslim Ottomans!”. Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia Herzegovina which is known as the "Jerusalem of Europe" is the only major European city to have a mosque, Catholic church, Orthodox church and synagogue within the same neighborhood. All this was due to the tolerance shown by its Muslim rulers who founded the city and ruled it for 400 years.

Professor Davotugly gave many such insights into how tolerant Muslims have been throughout the centuries, pointing out that extremist groups like ISIS are really anti-Islamic since they only harm Muslims and the good image of Islam, even going to the extent of destroying mosques as we saw recently.