The Leadership Forum in pre-Colonial Arab Islamic social and political history, organised by the Sociology and Anthropology Programme at the Doha Institute of Graduate Studies, kicked off yesterday.
The forum, which is held at the institute’s headquarters, is attended by about 20 researchers from various local, regional and international academic institutions.
The forum brings together researchers from Morocco, Yemen, Tunisia, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon to discuss a specific point between linguistic, anthropological, political, philosophical, and historical research.
The first day of the forum witnessed the organisation of three scientific sessions in which researchers discussed the topics of leadership and imamate, and their transitions during different historical periods.
In the opening session of the first session, the Head of Research at the Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies Dr Haider Saeed addressed the subject of “Imamate”.
Saeed tried in his paper to explore the origins of the semantics of the word “Imamate” and its derivatives in the Arab lexicon, pointing to the development of the concept and sociological contexts of this development.
The first day of the forum concluded with a paper entitled ‘Religious and tribal leadership in Yemeni society’, presented by Dr Fouad al-Salahi, a professor of sociology at Qatar University.