Tomorrow, Tuesday: Trends Places Ideological Extremism Under Scrutiny to Confront It Scientifically
On Tuesday, the Trends Research and Advisory Center will launch its fifth annual forum on political Islam, aiming to develop a scientific approach to the phenomenon of ideological extremism.
This year’s edition, held in the UAE capital, is organized under the theme: “Commonalities of Violence: Contemporary Approaches to Patterns of Ideological Extremism.” The forum seeks to explore both scientific and practical methods to confront extremism by examining the shared patterns of violence across extremist movements of different religious, nationalist, and racist orientations.
At a press conference held at the Trends headquarters, Hamad Al-Hosani, Director of the Political Islam Department, noted that the opening ceremony will include a welcoming address by Dr. Mohammed Abdullah Al-Ali, CEO of the center, followed by keynote speeches from prominent figures such as Sir Liam Fox, Chair of the Abraham Accords Group in the UK, and Dr. Khalifa Mubarak Al-Dhaheri, Chancellor of Mohammed bin Zayed University for Humanities. The ceremony will also feature the announcement of the winner of the Global Trends Award for Counterterrorism and Extremism.
The high-level opening session will focus on the topic: “From Islamism to Far-Right Extremism: How Violence Unites Diverse Currents.”
The program also includes four main sessions with the participation of leading policymakers and academics from across the globe, including experts from the UAE, the UK, the United States, Canada, France, Italy, India, Indonesia, Portugal, Poland, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. This international mix lends the discussions a multidimensional and interdisciplinary character.
For his part, Dr. Mohammed Abdullah Al-Ali stated that the fifth annual forum on political Islam comes at a critical time, as the world faces a surge in ideological extremism that poses a common threat to international security and stability, regardless of its religious, nationalist, or ideological roots. He emphasized that the center seeks through this forum to highlight the commonalities among these movements and uncover the mechanisms that make violence their unifying language despite divergent foundations.
The forum will also witness the launch of the interactive map of the Muslim Brotherhood’s global influence index and will unveil insights into how social media users around the world perceive the Brotherhood.
