For the fourth consecutive year, the Divinity Department of Eton College in Windsor, UK has invited an IIS scholar to address issues of Islam and the contemporary world. This year, Dr Nader El-Bizri spoke to 250 Lower Sixth Form (17-year-old) boys on the nature of Islam and the political world order.
Dr El-Bizri鈥檚 talk formed part of a series at Eton College entitled 鈥楨thics and Society,鈥 which examines a range of moral issues relating to society, the family, the environment, business and law. The series, now running for a number of years, has managed to introduce the students to ideas of both an ethical and philosophical nature, providing them with skills in analysis, argument and review.
Dr El-Bizri began his talk by urging those present to re-evaluate the role of religion in the contemporary world, even though its referential history to religious texts, commentaries, doctrines and established institutions and practices could be daunting. 鈥榃e might be intellectually perplexed, vexed and overwhelmed by what imposes itself on us when attempting to talk about religion in our age,鈥 observed Dr El-Bizri, 鈥榳e nonetheless cannot ignore鈥eligion and its place in our lives鈥ur current age challenges us to think about religion even if we live in a state of disorientation.鈥 Dr El-Bizri鈥檚 talk helped address some of the contemporary challenges facing Muslims in relation to modern political, social and religious thought. He framed his lecture by contextualising Islam within the shared 鈥榯heological and historical horizons鈥 of the monotheistic Abrahamic religions and the common heritage of Western Europe and the Orient: 鈥業t is in this context that the encounter between the Arabic/Islamic legacy and its Occidental European counterpart, which to many of our contemporaries appears to be an encounter between strangers, is all along an encounter between two traditions that rest on shared intellectual grounds and emerge from shared conceptual origins,鈥 said El-Bizri.
He concluded his talk by restating that the continuing encounter between these worlds and worldviews must be seen in relation to larger ideals and values. He admitted that 鈥榠n the face of an inherent universal injustice that announces itself, sometimes loudly and in most instances silently, concepts like 鈥渏ustice鈥, 鈥済oodness鈥, and 鈥渢ruth鈥 may become unsuitable to depict the complexity of our human predicament.鈥 However, 鈥榓s we are confronted with a global crisis, the enlightened quest for 鈥渏ustice鈥 must be unconditionally restored.鈥 Previous sessions in this year鈥檚 series have been conducted by both Eton Masters as well as external presenters from the world of business, politics and law. In previous years, Professor Azim Nanji, Dr Alice C. Hunsberger and Dr Tobias Mayer have been invited to speak as part of the 鈥楨thics and Society鈥 programme.
Eton College was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI. The College originally had 70 King鈥檚 Scholars or 鈥楥ollegers鈥 who lived in the College and were educated free, and a number of 鈥極ppidians鈥 who lived in the town of Eton and paid for their education. Today, it is a secondary school for approximately 1,280 boys, between the ages of 13 and 18, all of whom are boarders. Traditionally, the college has been affiliated with the Church of England but welcomes British and international students of all religious persuasions.
