Prince El Hassan Addresses the 2nd World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists

March 25, 2009 | Vetting explained

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(Amman – Majlis El-Hassan)

HRH Prince El Hassan Bin Talal of Jordan stressed the importance of Access to Justice and the Rule of Law which includes access to education and the eradication of legal illiteracy; Pointing out that charity and the sphere related to charity “is not philanthropy, not zakat, not ihsan and not sadaqat. It is all of these terminologies put together. It applies to all people, not singularly to Muslims. So we’re talking about raising the quality of life; closing the human dignity deficit.”

In a DVD message addressing the participants of the “2nd World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists” in Abu Dhabi this week, HRH said “I am delighted to feel that when I speak of an international giving exercise – south-south – and whether we are harnessing the mighty Senegal River (Senegal River Valley project), which was funded by the Kuwait Fund, or by cooperation with the riparian of the Senegal River, one is talking about a supra-national concept; a concept which promotes the public good in Islamic jurisprudence – the public good is the object of good governance.” Adding that, in terms of property rights, “we have to join efforts, other than commit ourselves to evolution, to make an assessment of our resources and in particular the good ‘bedside’ manner of, not the state in terms of government, but participation by ad hominem individuals from government, from the private sector and from civil society.”

“I think it is important to bear in mind that Islamic endowments, foundations, guilds – and I am now talking about establishing a link between the goldsmiths guild in London, for example, with the goldsmiths of Cairo and of Istanbul – the goldsmiths professional guild, are examples of professional people’s people-to-people interaction that we need to develop,” said the Prince.

“I notice with interest that Islamic banking is being adopted by many international banks. Yes, the bank makes a profit on its basic holding, but I think that developing this basic holding as in, for example, the development of The Sudan with its vast agricultural potential; the development of the Jordan Rift Valley; the development of the whole concept of water and energy alternatives such as the DESERTEC project, that is to say Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), extending from the Middle East region all the way across North Africa – is the path called for.”

Prince El Hassan said that there are issues that “do not need to be discussed in international conferences, with their focus on media coverage, but that need to be conceptualised at meetings behind the scenes; meetings where we sit down without an agenda behind closed doors with not more than twelve participants and emerge with some clear answers on how we move from globalisation to universalisation; how we move from exploitation to social equity and how to confront some of the relevant grim realities.” Reminding that by 2050 “we will have an army of intolerant, hatred-driven young unemployed people in Arab countries alone. They will not be going to banks to ask for collateral. They will not come to you unless a clearing house for charity has been established globally − patently capable of vetting the necessary and required focus mindful of a mission-oriented purpose. That mission should be to give people dignity; to pull people out of poverty and poverty issues, not by doing everything for them but by encouraging them to do something for themselves.”

(Amman 25 March 2009)

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