H.E. Koutoub Moustapha Sano, Secretary General of the Academy, participated in the International Conference: “Faith in a Changing World” organized by the Muhammadiyah League of Scholars in cooperation with the Muslim World League under the patronage of King Mohammed VI, King of Morocco, may Allah protect him, on 12-13 Rabi Al-Akhir, 1446, corresponding to 15-16 October 2024, in Rabat.

The conference was attended by international religious and intellectual personalities and renowned dialogues on issues of faith and the dialectics of contemporary atheism. His Excellency chaired the fourth session, “The Place of Philosophical and Epistemological Theories in Shaping Concepts, History and Civilization”. He began the session by expressing his deep gratitude and appreciation to the Muhammadiyah League and the Muslim World League for organizing this timely and important conference at this difficult historical juncture when faith is facing great challenges and religions, especially the monotheistic ones, are being subjected to distortions and hate campaigns, and the atheist crusade and its ideas and practices are the greatest and most vicious challenge in modern times that must be combated: “There is a fierce and dangerous campaign against philosophy and logic in the Muslim world, and it is an inherited campaign in which anyone who talks about philosophy or logic is accused of heresy, deviation, perversion, or other things, as philosophers of the past, whether Muslims or non-Muslims, were once accused of.” He added: “It is safe to say that a philosopher in language means a wise man, and the blessing of philosophy is the blessing of wisdom, but if it deviates or departs from the actual pattern intended for it, then it is a deviation…We must understand philosophical theories before judging them because judging a thing is based on human perception, and whoever does not perceive the thing well, i.e. does not understand the mental aspect of the theories, his judgment will be an unjust judgment, with the emphasis that philosophy in its truth means the love of wisdom, and does any of us not love wisdom?”

At the end of his speech, His Excellency called for a renewed interest in the study of philosophy in our universities and institutions and for the revival of philosophy departments, which have become extinct in many universities due to the ferocity of the campaign against them.

The conference released a statement entitled “Faith in a Changing World”, which represents an important call by international religious and intellectual elites and symbols about faith confronting atheism, emphasizing the difference between religious and intellectual beliefs on the meaning of faith in God and the importance of concerted efforts to confront nihilistic and atheistic thoughts.