The Cairo Centre for Strategic Studies (CCSS) announced that Professor Alwi Shihab, the Special Envoy of the President of Indonesia and the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, won the Imam Muhammad Abduh International Prize in its first session of 2020.
The centre said in a statement yesterday that the award bears the name of a leading figure in Islamic thought in the world in the modern era.
Grand Mufti of Egypt, Imam Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905), an Egyptian Islamic scholar, jurist and writer, is considered one of the founders of Islamic Modernism.
The statement added that Imam Muhammad Abdoh was the pioneer of the first Islamic renewal, and his works contributed to the process of religious reform throughout the Islamic world from Jakarta to Dakar.
Political writer Ahmed Al-Maslamani, former advisor to the president and head of the CCSS, said, Dr Alwi Shihab is a prominent Asian thinker and politician, and he is one of those who work constantly in the comprehensive confrontation of terrorism and religious extremism.
Professor Shihab, 75, is to deliver a memorial lecture at CCSS headquarters in the Garden City, Cairo, on his forthcoming visit to Egypt, the statement added.
Shihab is one of the leading authorities and scholars on the interaction of Christian and Muslim communities. Currently he is the Indonesian President’s special envoy to the Middle East and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
The CCSS is an Egyptian think tank that studies the Arab World and the Middle East.
