Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

When the organizers of The World Economic Forum invited me to address you this year on The Role of Islam in the Rapprochement among Peoples, I welcomed the invitation and I thank them for it. The world economic order, in the formation of which your Forum plays an important part, is passing through a critical phase permeated with legitimate feelings of anxiety from globalization, which is an open process that once it starts nobody knows where it would end. Perhaps this anxiety explains why globalization is met with such popular backlash in the advanced as well as the developing countries. This calls upon us all to administer it in such way as to achieve the goal for which it has originally started, which is to bring peoples together and eradicate the gaps existing between them. This cannot be attained without the rehabilitation of the noble values and sublime human ethics, and the recognition of their vital role in promoting international economic relations and establishing a world economic order of a humanistic nature, with which the majority is convinced and sees that it has genuine interest in belonging to and defending it. To this end, Islam can contribute positively.

The role of Islam in rapprochement among peoples is not separable from the aspiration to building a world order in which equality and interdependence prevail, and which enjoys stability, and where high ideals assume once again their proper position in rectifying the faults of globalization. Throughout fourteen centuries, Islam has been exhorting its followers and calling the whole world to rapprochement and activation of the flow of trade, as a mean it regards necessary for the development of territories and a close tie connecting human beings wherever they are. The best evidence of Islam’s concern with trade is the Holy Quran commendation of the winter and summer two trips made by Arabs before Islam to the territories of Syria and Yemen and then to the whole world after the revelation of the Holy Quran. Islam has never advocated the construction of walls of isolation and solitude around Muslims. It could not have become an international religion had it not urged them to coexist and be in harmony with the world and find the common denominator that brings them together with their brothers in the farthest ends of earth in compliance with the Holy Quran verse “and made you into nations and tribes that you may know each other.” Nothing is more evident of rapprochement between peoples than Islamic history. The brightest Muslim eras were when Muslims opened themselves to the world; whereas their retreat was linked either to an isolation which they wrongly imposed on themselves or was forcefully imposed upon them during the colonial era.

Tolerance and intercommunication are two human principles on which Islam has laid emphasis and exhorted upon. Tolerance was the shortest way to win the trust of others, and intercommunication was the gate through which Muslims availed the world and benefited from it. These two principles helped globalize Islam from Indonesia in the East to Morocco in the West and from Russia in the North to Africa in the South.

This huge Islamic bloc belongs to a bigger world that it needs and which needs it. Muslims have enormous natural resources, among which is more than half the world’s petroleum reserves. They occupy strategic positions that influence world peace and stability. They represent a market that is by all measures vast. Moreover, the Muslims have broad interests with the world, among which is their endeavour to accommodate technology in their homelands, and alleviate the financial burdens on some of their debt-ridden countries. Today, Muslims have the basics that qualify them and oblige them to take part in the building of the new global village and write the history of globalization with all nations and peoples. There are more than a billion Muslims who hope and insist, along with more than three billion people in the developing countries, that globalization shall bring peoples together and not separate them. They stand against all views that cast peoples and cultures in rigid molds so that each nation and culture shall remain an island isolated in itself from the others. Our heritage has always urged us to seek learning even if it were in China.

The message of Islam on rapprochement among peoples is also manifest in the membership of Muslim countries in regional blocs with countries that are not all Muslim states. The ASEAN, The OPEC, The Group of 15 and The European Mediterranean Partnership are but a few examples that express the conviction of Muslims with the need to work side by side with others of different cultures. That is not all; when Muslim countries sought to have a regional organization of their own, they did not opt to close it on themselves. The organization of Islamic Conference which my country, Qatar, had the honour of presiding over its current, session, comprises 56 states in some of which Muslims do not represent but a limited minority.

From my present position as the Chairman of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, I assure you of the keenness of the Organization’s member states on building bridges with others. We pointed out in the latest Islamic Summit, which Qatar did host, that we are in principle for globalization and not against it as long as it is unprejudiced and ‎balanced.

Here, I would like to point out some issues that are related to Islam and its role in building bridges between peoples and nations, by stressing on the following points:
(1) We, as Muslims, do not believe in the conflict of civilizations, but rather in the dialogue of cultures and acquaintance of peoples. We view the world as being a forum that contributes to the formation of civilizations based on the admission of Right and not on the sway of Might.
(2) The fear is not from cultural and religious conflict but from poverty, ignorance, the policies of exclusiveness, snobbery and the marginalization of the noble values and principles in economic and political dealings between individuals, peoples, and states.
(3) We think that nations and peoples have to be capable of competing and providing solutions and alternatives, and of convincing partnership in the economic, commercial and cultural spheres.
(4) Muslims regard all humanity as one family descending from one origin; they believe that diversity in races, cultures and geographical locations are ways for cooperation, acquaintance and human integration; that there is no meaning for acquaintance between peoples of the world without cooperation, integration and cultural dialogue in the interest of humanity at large.
(5) The Muslims creed enjoins them to recognize the peaceful other and extend help to him, for fair dealing with him, and the practice of justice in international relations. Islam has put emphasis on the sound principles for the launching of dialogue on equal footing and common ground. Nothing is more evident than that Islamic civilization is the civilization of the common human denominator, in which all peoples, races and cultures participate.

The course of Islam is intermediateness and moderation. The State of Qatar is but an example of tens of Islamic countries that place intermediateness, moderation and coexistence on top of the priorities of its foreign policy. Suffice to give one instance that proves this: Qatar has always believed in the necessity of coexistence between the producers and consumers in the field of energy, and in the fairness of the pricing of the crude oil, since that is justice, and justice is the essence of Islam and its highest value: None shall harm nor be harmed. Muslims and, in my conviction, followers of all noble missions have to participate in the formulation of the new world economic order and rationalisation of globalization by the revival of the values of equality, interdependence and affirmation of the sublime human principles.

Perhaps the challenges faced by globalization are due to the fact that its greatest concern till now has been with the development of structures and institutions more than with the meanings and values, to which globalization has not given much attention. These are matters where Islam and Muslims can contribute a great deal. In this respect, I call that we jointly affirm the importance of values and cultural concepts.

The DAVOS Forum has become a landmark in the development of the world economic order. New, and creative ideas spring from it. It has become a ground for a constellation of leaders, thinkers, and businessmen to meet, and for governments and representatives of people to convene. When we come here, we all hope to come out with answers for many questions which we ask about the future. We often discover when answering these questions that what brings us together is more than what sets us apart, and that we always have to arrive at agreement amongst ourselves.

May God bestow success on you.
May the peace and blessing of God be upon you.