Research Programs

In light of the centre’s vision, mission, objectives and previous activities, and within the framework of its governing standards and values, the centre’s work strategy of preparing, conducting and publishing research projects can be summarized in the following two aspects that represented its research identity:

(1) Social networks and regimes of mediating societies, and the analysis of their functions, roles, and what they can offer and do, at the economic, political, scientific, legal, as well as pure social levels, and general ways to form societal structures parallel to the modern state structure, while going beyond the theorizing level as much as possible, by facing reality and shedding light on existing phenomena, movements, alliances, and gatherings.

(2) Re-reading the human heritage generally, and the Islamic heritage particularly, and trying to present and address it in a modern way in terms of concepts, tools, and means, and making suggestions that go beyond the usual scientific or legal idea in dealing with heritage books and their ideas.

This strategy, in light of the centre’s vision and mission and the line governing its activities and projects (its research identity), was reflected in its production and various publications through six programs that formed the centre’s work fields: identity and decolonization, religion and power, controversial relations, policymaking, digital systems, and humanitarian relief, which can be described as follows:

Identity represents a central concept in the social world, according to it individuals, groups, and countries define themselves, and determine their vision of the world, and accordingly their position is formed, and then their roles. However, Identity, like other social concepts, is affected by different contexts therefore it is susceptible to change and a change in the identities entails a change in interests and roles.

The Arab and Islamic nation suffers from problems of identity and cultural self as its history has witnessed a lot of fluctuations and changes that affects the nature of identity and the spheres of belonging which resulted in an imbalance in the order of those spheres and created a conflict of loyalties among group, state and nation. All of this in the light of a constant question which can only be resolved by answering the questions of identity: Who are we? What do we want? What is our relationship with the other?

This program is concerned with issues of identity and national liberation from foreign dependence, on the top of which is cognitive liberation in the Arab and Islamic worlds, as the question of “who are we?” as opposed to “who are they?” still forms a constant controversy. If Identities are not just a cultural content that expresses affiliation but rather interests and roles are determined on their basis then the problems emerging from them become more complicated for the fundamental effect they have on main issues that the nation seeks to achieve as development, independence and unity.

The objectives of the program are divided between two objectives:

  • Examination and resolution of identity problems and the resulting roles and interests. This objective has two dimensions, the first: descriptive and observational, related to examining the current state of identity problems in the Arab and Islamic nation, and the second: evaluative, provides comparisons based on the vision adopted by the center concerning identity problems.
  • Raising awareness concerning the nature of spheres of belonging and their order and consolidating the Arab-Islamic identity and liberating from forma of foreign dependency.

The Arab and Islamic nation, after being subjected to a historical rupture, has been subjected to an identity crisis clearly affected its values, interests, and roles; There has become a need to redefine its identity in various economic, social and cultural fields, as this crisis affected the identities of individuals as well as groups, due to the integration and continuous interaction among these levels (individual, group, state, nation). On this basis, the program is concerned with the following themes:

  • The identity of individuals in a changing environment: This theme is concerned with studying the impacts of rapid and successive developments of lifestyle on individuals from a psychological and social point of view as the identities of individuals become at stake, under threat and dismantling and reassembling. If the identity of individual is responsible for his movement and it leads and guides him, then its absence or confusion lead to problems related to the being of this individual his view of himself and the world around him, and then his role.
  • Identity of states versus Identity of groups: This theme studies different liberation experiences, their political, economic and cognitive dimensions, the failure and success of resistance in general and the nature of relationship between the identities of groups and states, considering that the identity of society or state is an outcome of a continuous interaction between groups that compete in order that its cultural self becomes the reference identity, if it is desired and if the competition is conflictual or zero-sum.
  • Identities and history: This theme focuses on understanding how history contributes to shaping and building the identity. For example, the circumstances in which the Arab and Islamic history developed has affected the issue of identity, as it was in constant struggle among national, secular, patriotic and Islamic according to the historical stages it went through from the conquest through the occupation and then the independence. This theme is linked to the identity in Islamic literature and literature of historical dimension.
  • Globalization and Identity: This theme focuses on studying the way through which global variables affects the construction of identities and through which it works to introduce modifications and changes to national (local) identity. Globalization which is not only associated with the present time but also with each power that desires dominance, has sought to shape the identities of others in order that they become on an international (global) pattern that serves its interests and is conducive to the continuation of  its dominance.

An old relation, as old as man himself, has arisen between religion and politics in general and between religion and power in particular as the phenomenon of power is attached to man. Since power needs something to organize it, religion has been chosen to be its organizer and a guide for the actions of those in charge of it. But since the religious is sacred and politics is humanly variable, a debate took place between the constant and the variable and their relation, so three trends, at least, has crystallized; a trend that considers religion a ruler and regulator of the humanly (political) variable, another that employs the religious to serve the political and the third seeks to separate them from the standpoint of  “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s”. The Islamic world throughout its different stages of history has witnessed that controversy and interaction between the three trends and perhaps the conflict between these currents is what makes it a major issue in the intellectual arena.

The program is based on examining the problems of overlap and interaction between the religious and the political. It examines the fields of politics and its relation with religion, and power and the phenomena that derive from it. The most important manifestations of politics are the central concern of the program as the interaction between power and religion generates problems and dichotomies that require study and deep understanding. The superficial approach to them has led to deepening the debate over them rather than resolving their problems and setting frameworks that ultimately lead to the good of religion and world as politics is defined from an Islamic perspective.

Considering that the issues of religion and power are the most prominent controversial issues that occupy the Arab and Islamic nation, theoretically and practically, the program seeks to achieve the following goals:

  • Deepening the understanding of the current issues related to the relation between the religious and the political, examining the fields of the political and the fields of the religious, and then their relation with each other.
  • Attempting to provide recommendations related to how to deal with these issues in a way that contributes to reforming the reality of political and social practice in Islamic societies.

In connection with the program description and objective, the program themes are divided into:

(1) The individual between religion and power: This theme is concerned with the impact of the relation between the religious and the political on the individual, and his impact on determining the directions of the relation between the two as the individual has a role in this relation that varies according to his position and interests.

(2) Religious political sociology: This theme deals with the interaction of the religious and the political within the social framework. It studies the mutual influence between religion as a phenomenon and socio-political phenomena, which mainly revolves around power, its values, its governing frameworks, and regulatory controls.

(3) Religious political movements: Movements that glorify the role of religion and its relation with life in general and with power in particular are widespread. Therefore, this theme traces the action of these movements and their programs, as they are historical and realistic experiences that can be benefited from, especially the movements of political Islam, which have generated deeper debates related to their relation with power and their position in relation to it.

(4) Religious minorities and power: political power is not neutral vis-a-vis different groups, which resulted in varying relations between the authorities and some groups for religious reasons, especially in ethnically distinct societies. So this theme focuses on examining that type of relation and on the policies of different countries in dealing with minorities from assimilation to extermination and how minorities maintain their identity, which is a common point with the “identity and decolonization program”.

(5) The religious dimension in international relations: The theme is concerned with examining the impact of recent developments in international relations, which not only highlighted but also emphasized the role of religion and civilizational dimensions in international politics, on the phenomenon of the absence of power in the international environment. It also focuses on the legacy that some phenomena like religious political movements especially Islamic ones left like cross-border interactions, and the nature of international relations.

Difference is a natural phenomenon while disagreement is a degree in relations that occurs when difference turns into a source of competition and conflict. This is not always in a negative sense as there is competition in goodness, win-win competitive conflicts and human action is based on difference and disagreement for example: There is a disagreement between authority and opposition in terms of programs and tools, a disagreement among groups in terms of ideologies and ideas. There is even a disagreement between state and society on starting points! Then there is a disagreement among countries that may amount to a conflict in the absence of the supreme authority.

The program is concerned with studying the impacts of the phenomenon of disagreement on groups and states. Since the phenomenon of disagreement is a social phenomenon, people are the ones who give meaning to this phenomenon, and interact as a result of it in a positive or negative way according to the context as each interaction has a governing context. The program focuses on studying the conflictual relations that concern the Arab and Islamic world, so it is concerned with civil-military relations, political ideologies, dependency relations, international competition, and other issues in their context.

The program aims at achieving two goals:

  • Studying conflictual interactions related to the Arab/Islamic civilized environment on several levels, political, social, and economic, internal and external, in search of general patterns of conflictual relations in this environment.
  • Presenting action programs, based on those studies, that seek to make good use of conflictual relations, and transform negative patterns into positive ones, which ultimately enhance the state of the Arab/Islamic nation, its inter-relationship and its position in the international arena.

The program is concerned with several themes as follows:

  1. Thought and Movement: It is concerned with studying the interactions of thought and movement, comparing them, and revealing the contradiction between them at the level of one group, then the interaction of individuals and different groups in society, and the resulting manifestations of disagreement.
  2. State Institutions: This theme is concerned with understanding how state institutions function in Islamic countries, and the extent of compatibility or disagreement between them. It is also concerned with examining the relation between bureaucracies and political authorities and the consequences of this on the stability of the state and the achievement of the public interest.
  3. The state and society: it focuses on studying the nature of the relations between the state, whose emergence was historically linked to a certain pattern of control over society, and the societies and their historical heritage, therefore it focuses on studying the patterns of relation between the state and society.
  4. Inter-relationships: It focuses on relations between Arab and Islamic countries and peoples, especially conflictual ones. It seeks to study them on the one hand, and analyze them on the other hand. It is also concerned with the relations of the nation’s institutions, organizations, and societal formations and ways of strengthening them.
  5. International interactions: It is concerned with studying world great powers relations, and their various effects on development and independence in the countries of the Islamic world on the one hand, and their effects on their overall issues on the other hand.

Policy making is the main task undertaken by different political regimes despite their different orientation and doctrine and according to data of each stage including a regime’s age, environment, and the parties in charge of it.

Since this process is no longer limited to the official governing authorities but participation of various natural or legal persons in society such as non-governmental associations, labor unions, and even think tanks has become one of the pillars of this process and a key influence in policy guidance whose role varies by the nature of the relationship between the state and society.

This program is concerned with examining the nature of interaction between the different parties of the policymaking process. Policymaking has become a process of interaction between several formal and informal parties. Each of these parties, depending on the nature of their composition, their social strengths, and the nature of the political regime participates in shaping this process and determining policy directions in its various internal and external political, economic and social aspects.

Being associated with the nature of the policymaking process, the program aims at:

  • Re-reading the Islamic heritage of state administration and governance including presenting it, commenting on it, and comparing it to contemporary western ideas and theories.
  • Studying public policies that go beyond one country, especially among the Islamic world’s countries, through economic cooperation projects between several countries or economic development in fields such as energy, food, water, etc. which is a reverse clash with the “contentious relations program”.
  • Broadening understanding of public policy issues particularly understanding how different policies are formulated, the role of the state and the compositions of society in it, analyzing governmental policies and studying their various impacts.
  • Enhancing awareness of the role of formations, societal elites and non-governmental institutions in policymaking, rationalizing its movement, and achieving community control over these policies, and the associated back-door financing methods for public projects and services.

The program’s attention is divided into a number of axes that are concerned with understanding policymaking locally, regionally and globally, and the nature of the different influences between these levels and the different policy fields: social and economic, most importantly:

(1) Economic Reform and Economic Policies: this axis focuses on the nature of economic reform in the Islamic world’s countries, and how to enact it, especially in light of the controversy over the relationship between the economic projects’ input and output and through understanding the various economic policies, especially monetary and financial policies, as well as the nature of policies in the various economic sectors: banking, industrial, agricultural, etc.

(2) Political development: It is concerned with following up political development status in Islamic countries, and the crises erupting around them, including dependency, political participation, legitimacy, and other crises facing Arab and Islamic political regimes.

(3) Macroeconomic indicators: It is concerned with following up the most important macroeconomic indicators that measure levels of economic development and the economic progress’ extent in Islamic countries, and their position in the global economy and its various policies: monetary and financial. (4) The civil society’s role in policymaking: It examines the civil society and its various institutions’ role in influencing and directing the policymaking process, especially the think tank and research institutions.

(5)  Elite decision-makers: This axis focuses on analyzing the political, social, economic, military, and business elites’ role, whether through exploiting their positions in power or outside power, in directing various policies in the Islamic world.

(6)  The policies of the international regime towards the Islamic world: It is concerned with revealing the nature of global policies and plans directed to the Islamic world: its individuals, peoples, and states, and how they interact with the data of the international regime, and the challenges it poses.

The rapid technical development in the twenty-first century is the result of the prospects of the digital era in which technology interweaves with the internet, means of communication and computer applications. That era offers features such as instant communication, crossing spatial and temporal boundaries, and inventing new tools to do professional and social chores. For example, robots now play an important role in houses as well as companies. In addition, contemporary media (social media) is no longer limited to individuals for communication, but has become a political tool used by countries within the framework of their foreign policies. Also, Digitization has added new features to old phenomena and concepts: diplomacy has become digital, security has become cyber, and democracy and voting have become electronic.

The digital age’s influence extended over all social, economic, political, psychological and media fields. This requires greater attention to this phenomenon which seems to be a development invading daily life in all fields in an unstoppable way. Therefore, the digital systems program focuses on understanding the relationship between technology and society. In a broad sense, technology is not limited to the internet, but all the achievements made by technology (digital systems) that mainly affect both local and international societies. The program is mainly focused on providing deep and accurate understanding of digitization’s effects on individuals, groups, peoples, and interstate relations and analysing their results, and looking for the best ways to make use of and develop them.

The objectives of the program are divided into two types:

  • Examining the digitization phenomenon and its new concepts, and its effects in different fields.
  • Contributing to rationalizing the digitization movement witnessed by the Arab and Islamic worlds. Since digital effects are known to be tow-dimensional, this program seeks to identify the positives of digitization, works on increasing it and provides definite recommendations for investing it while avoiding the resulting challenges and negatives.

This program attempts, through broad areas of interest, to clarify the effects of digital systems on individuals, gatherings and countries, and to achieve the research and applied objectives for which they are designed, by answering the questions posed in each axis, which can be summarized as follows:

(1) The individual in the digital world: How has technological development affected an individual’s life? To what extent have digital systems contributed to facilitating the individual’s life and livelihood? And to whom is digital technology directed? What are its psychological and social effects on individuals? What about the privacy and personal security concepts in the digital world?

(2) Gathering and Economy in the Digital Age: What New Has the Digital Revolution Brought to the Idea of Gathering? How has it affected communication between different gatherings, from friendships to associations, institutions, companies to parties? And how this revolution has affected the economic field: electronic exchanges, electronic currencies and banking transactions, and the digital economy.

(3) The digitization’s effect on social phenomena: How will digitization affect the society’s class structure? What about the distribution of wealth, status, and social power? What jobs does the digital age require? And which jobs will disappear? What effect does this have on different societies and classes?

(4) Technology and political regimes: How have phenomena such as democracy, voting, government services, and public administration been affected by digital systems, let alone individuals’ political interest? And how have different governments and political forces used them? What are the advantages and problems of using these applications in the internal political scene?

(5) The digitization’s effects on the field of international relations: To what extent will the international relations environment witness change under the digital world’s effects? Does digitalization assume new cooperative or conflictual patterns of international interactions? How will states use them as political tools that serve their interests?

Conflicts intensified and internal wars and disputes widely spread across the Islamic world. Thus, displacement, migration, and asylum, in turn, became widespread and extended over several areas from Asia to Africa and America. In addition, the phenomena resulting from these processes are no longer internal only, but rather a combination of internal and external, political and social, and humanitarian and beneficial.

Issues of “humanitarian relief” have attracted the attention of many States, entities, and researchers from different perspectives. Some researchers are concerned with the humanitarian dimensions of political relations, both international and domestic, in view of human’s centrality in the world. Other researchers are concerned with religious dimensions, seeking to rescue those who belong to their religion or other religions. And others are concerned with their country’s soft power and its impact on the crisis that requires humanitarian intervention or rivalling of world powers, proving their place in the international system.

This programme is concerned with monitoring Muslims’ humanitarian situation. It monitors the situation of the afflicted, the displaced, and what communities and nations do to alleviate their suffering. It examines the nature of the concern for humanitarian issues worldwide, attempts to expose the truth of that concern and seeks to expose the overlap between the different phenomena arising from humanitarian relief: asylum, migration, displacement, and humanitarian intervention.

The programme, out of its interest in the humanitarian situation in the world, aims at:

  • Publishing and evaluating documented scientific studies that detect the international relief situation, in order to contribute to the development of an Arabic / Islamic index of humanity.
  • Renewing awareness of relief issues, exposing Western biases towards humanitarian issues, and achieving human solidarity.

The program is evenly focused on the following areas:

(1) Humanity Index: it is concerned with detecting the most prominent areas that suffer humanly and setting criteria for describing what is humanitarian from an Islamic point of view.

(2) Asylum and immigration phenomena: it focuses on the phenomena of asylum and migration. It studies their causes and tracks their effects and the efforts exerted to deal with them, and their resulting international interactions.

(3) Displacement: it focuses on the suffering of the displaced due to climate change, war, and the environment.

(4) Poverty, disease, and malnutrition: It is concerned with areas suffering from poverty of all kinds and levels, malnutrition, high rates of disease and mortality, and efforts to alleviate their suffering, and reduce these rates globally.