Participants in the first conference of the Green Tent activities affiliated with 'A Flower Each Spring' programme emphasised the importance of endowments in eradicating poverty and hunger, promoting good health and social well-being, providing quality education and decent work, and achieving economic growth, proposing a set of scenarios related to developing its performance and future fields of work.
The participants -- scientists, researchers, academics and specialists from different countries of the world called, through video conference technology, to establish a health endowment fund, part of which would be directed to the prevention of coronavirus (Covid-19) and communicable disease research, and to have a competent administration to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the economic, health and social conditions of the countries witnessing its wide spread.
The conference reviewed the role of the endowment in spreading awareness, self-purification, religious education, and achieving integration between the state and individuals, as well as the contributions of the charitable endowment to achieving scientific renaissance through the establishment of schools, institutes, universities and research institutions and strengthening the independence of scholars.
The conference also discussed the role of the endowment in redistributing wealth by spending on the poor, the needy, widows and orphans, and providing them with solidarity social security in a way that reduces poverty and unemployment and pushes the wheel of social development. It also focused on the role of the endowment in building health institutions, treating patients, producing medical research, and relieving the state's burden in times of epidemics and diseases.
In this regard, the Head of 'A Flower Each Spring' programme, Dr Saif bin Ali al-Hajri, explained that the endowment system is the historical formula that Muslims invented to be close to God through participation in building their societies, and that it represents one of the most wonderful forms of human co-operation. He noted that the objectives of the endowment appear in compliance with God's orders to spend for the public interest and achieve the principle of solidarity among members of the community, social balance, general security and stability, community development, and securing a future for those in need.
For his part, HE former minister of health Dr Abdulrahman Salem al-Kuwari, called for the establishment of a special fund for health endowments that would contribute to the advancement of this important sector to reduce the burden on countries by financing healthcare and harnessing resources in serving health facilities.
He stressed the importance of this type of endowment at such a stage which is witnessing the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, noting that predecessors realised the importance of the endowment directed at the health sector by establishing hospitals and treating patients. For his part, the Secretary-General of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) Dr Ali Mohieddin al-Qaradaghi, affirmed that Islamic civilisation is the gift of endowment, after belief and faith, and that this great civilisation was based on the endowment that exceeded more than 37 types including sciences, schools, universities and hospitals, as well as the human, cultural and development aspects, and other endowments related to animals, birds and plants.
He said that the essence of the mission of the endowment is the fight against poverty, especially that the field of investment is wide in front of the endowment projects, and if Zakat funds were combined with the endowment funds, there would not be one poor person in the Islamic world. In addition, a number of speakers at the conference reviewed the experiences of their countries, Oman, Kuwait, Egypt, UAE, Britain and others in the fields of endowment work and how they benefited from it and dealt with it, stressing that the endowment institution is a unique institution that stems from the great meaning of Islamic solidarity.
