Mdiq — HM King Mohammed VI, Commander of the Faithful, accompanied by HRH Prince Moulay Rachid and HH Prince Moulay Ismail, presided, on Saturday at the Mohammed VI mosque in Mdiq, over a new religious lecture, the seventh in a series of such lectures held during the fasting month of Ramadan.
The lecture was delivered by professor Mouhsin Igoujim, president of the local ulema council of Kenitra, on “Islam’s teachings in making people embrace civic-minded attitudes building on positive conscience” drawing on the Quranic verse: “The Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil: they observe regular prayers, practise regular charity, and obey Allah and His Messenger. On them will Allah pour His mercy: for Allah is Exalted in power, Wise.”
The lecturer tackled the concept of citizenship in its current sense, which has its conceptual counterpart in Islam. He, in this sense, said that this concept has a central dimension in the modern state as it depicts the citizen as a social being with rights and duties, which are induced by his belonging to a community, within a framework governed by the laws and the Constitution.
In the Islamic conception, he went on, the place of human beings in society is conceived, first, as an element who has a number of responsibilities and obligations in complementarity between rights and duties. The common denominator between members of the community is loyalty to Islam as a profession of faith, a system of values and a mode of organization backed by Al-Shariah.
Being naturally inclined to pessimism, the human being, thanks to the central role of faith, is able to reverse this situation and adopt an approach characterized by optimism to deal with the contingencies of life.
The notion of citizenship is correlated with the virtue of gratitude, first to God and to others, because all the benefits and postures enjoyed by each other are all signs of God’s grace and human beings must be grateful, according to the lecturer.
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