At the beginning of the panel, Safih explained the nature of the West’s fear of Islam, describing that “it is not limited to rulers and political leaders but also extends to intellectuals and philosophers,” pointing out that he has concluded through his continuous studies that the secret behind this fear lies in the French Revolution. Also, he has clarified that most of the principles provided by the French Revolution, which he described as “ it changed the face of history in general, and not France only”, were inspired by three oriental religions: Islam, Christianity and Mithraism. He emphasized, at the end of his presentation, that he diagnosed the West’s fear as a fear of Orient in general, and not Islam in particular. During the discussion, there were several questions and interventions, ranging from agreement to disagreement with the proposals made by Mr. Abdul Ali Safih, while most attendees expressed their gratitude to RCD for his contributions to enrich the intellectual and cultural reality in the society, calling for organizing more programs in the future within the same framework.

It is worth mentioning that RCD has previously organized–in addition to its symposium with political elites- a number of intellectual and cultural programs, whose outcomes have been organized by RCD’s Research and Development Department and provided to researchers and scholars in fields related to that programs.