News – Page 4 – Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism

An Historic Contribution to Interfaith Understanding within the Family of Abrahamic Religions

Last Thursday, at the Pontifical Institute for the Study of Arabic and Islam in Rome, our fellows, Professor Ibrahim Zein and Dean Recep Senturk, both of the College of Islamic Studies, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, gave presentations at the Georgetown Lecture on Contemporary Islam 2024.

John Borelli, special assistant for Catholic identity and dialogue to the president of Georgetown University, moderated the program.

Professor Ibrahim Zein and Ahmed El-Wakil have authored a book, The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad, on the historical giving by the Prophet Muhammad of covenants to respect and protect Christians and Muslims.

For his part in the Georgetown lecture, Professor Zein affirmed, after close study of multiple existing recensions of covenants given personally by the Prophet, that these documents are not forgeries. His conclusion is that we have accurate texts of covenants given by the Prophet Muhammad from which we can learn more about his religious principles, his values and his engagement with non-Muslims “under the wing of mercy,” as he said in several of his covenants.

In this connection, it is most important to note that the Qur’an opens with acknowledgement of Allah’s mercy and compassion:

In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, Most Merciful: Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds, the Most Compassionate, Most Merciful.

Dean Recep then spoke to the contemporary application of the values enshrined in Prophet Muhammad’s covenants with Christians and Jews (and also with Zoroastrians). Dean Recep places the Prophet’s use of covenant within the moral recognition of a universal humanity arising from God’s creation of Adam and all those who descended from him. In Arabic, this universalism of the inherent possibility of preciousness to be associated with all human persons is called Adamiyyah. (Please refer to Dean Recep’s article, “Islamic Law and the Children of Adam”.)

The common conclusion of the two presentations is that at the time of the Prophet, Islam was a more welcoming and tolerant religion than is conventionally accepted these days by many, including many Muslims.

At the conclusion of the Q&A segment of the lecture, our chairman emeritus, Lord Daniel Brennan, stated his view that the lecture had been “historic” in opening new vistas for mutual respect and inter-religious collaboration and mutuality among the faithful followers of the three Abrahamic religions.

To decide for yourself how significant it is for us today to learn about the covenants of the Prophet Muhammad and their affirmation of tolerance in religion, please do read the book by Professor Ibrahim Zein and Ahmed El-Wakil linked above.

I would also like to thank Silvano Cardinal Tomasi for his leadership and guidance these past 5 years, as the Caux Round Table has provided its good offices as best as possible to gather scholarly opinion about the provenance, historicity and textual authenticity of the Prophet’s covenants.

I write this on the day of Pentecost, a moment of remembrance for Christians of the coming of the Holy Spirit into our world. May that touch of higher justice inspire all of us to think again of just who is our neighbor and what is due to them from us.

Caux Round Table Proposal for Reconciliation Among Those Faithful to the Abrahamic Religions

I write to you from Rome where yesterday, our chairman emeritus and myself, with our Caux Round Table fellows, Silvano Cardinal Tomasi, John Dalla Costa, Dean Recep Senturk and Professor Ibrahim Zein, made public a press release and statement on the use of covenants for reconciliation among the faithful within the family of the Abrahamic religions.

Yesterday was most significant for releasing a statement on seeking peace in the Holy Land. It was the anniversary of the 1948 Nakba, a devastating experience for many Palestinians, leading to decades of alienation and conflict between Palestinians and the Jews of Israel.

The world has watched, over many decades, failure after failure to heal the wounds of fear and conflict in the Holy Land and bring about a just and lasting reconciliation among parties in conflict.

Perhaps, therefore, a new approach is needed. Neither war, nor sovereign claims to territory, nor conferences and diplomatic interventions, have been successful.

Finding a basis for mutual respect and appreciation of the other is needed, as Pope Francis proposed in his last encyclical, Fratelli Tutti. In this context, the precedent of the Prophet Muhammad giving covenants for himself and his followers to keep until the end of time to respect and protect Christians and Jews becomes of great significance.

Orn Bodvarsson Appointed Fellow

It is my honor to report that Orn Bodvarsson has been appointed a fellow of the Caux Round Table.

Professor Bodvarsson has an enviable record of accomplishment in teaching and thinking about capitalism, business, finance and public governance. He has been graciously supportive of our work in past years and I look forward to his greater involvement in our delivering thought leadership and a foundational vision of justice.

Orn has a Ph.D. in economics from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, with research in labor economics, applied microeconomics, economics of information and financial economics. He received his B.S. in economics, with honors, from Oregon State University in 1979 and his M.S. in agricultural and resource economics, also from Oregon State University, in 1982.

Orn is currently the dean of the Atkinson Graduate School of Management and professor of economics at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.

Previously, he was dean of the Gore School of Business and professor of economics at Westminster University in Salt Lake City, Utah, dean of the College of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies and professor of economics at California State University, Sacramento and founding dean of the School of Public Affairs and professor of economics at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

Orn has published The Economics of Immigration: Theory and Policy, 2^nd edition (with Hendrik F. Van den Berg), Heidelberg, Germany: Springer-Verlag (2013) and numerous articles for peer reviewed journals.

He will bring to our discussions a wise humanity, an open mind and thoughtful attention to detail.

I am delighted to have his guidance and counsel readily available.

April Pegasus Now Available!

Here’s the April issue of Pegasus.

In this edition, we include three articles.

The first, by yours truly, is about equity. What is it? What’s its history? Do people who speak of it actually know what they’re talking about?

Secondly, we include a piece by Michael Hartoonian on the causes, propositions and policy recommendations for atrophying societies.

Lastly, we have a guest article by a colleague at the Sasin School of Management on boosting Western capitalism with Eastern wisdom.

As usual, I would be most interested in your thoughts and feedback.

March 2024 Pegasus Now Available!

Here’s the March issue of Pegasus.

In this edition, we bring to you three items.

First, Michael Hartoonian includes his latest article, “The Pillars of Capitalism and Democracy: Morality and Merit.”

Secondly, we include excerpts of Warren Buffett’s annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders.

Thirdly, we run an article by one of the fellows, Recep Senturk, on “Islamic Law and the Children of Adam.”

Lastly, David Kansas has recently joined us as editor-at-large of Pegasus. Earlier in his career, he was president of American Public Media, editor-in-chief of TheStreet.com and an editor with the Wall Street Journal.

As usual, I would be most interested in your thoughts and feedback.

February 2024 Pegasus Now Available!

Here’s the February issue of Pegasus.

This edition includes four items.

First, Michael Hartoonian, associate editor, asks questions about the transcendental – even in our superficially secular age. He links the transcendental – God for short – to the inspirations which cause us to create social capital and institutions to experience civilization.

Then, our fellow, Abdullah al-Ahsan, proposes that we can learn from history of what our kind has done in the past. He draws from our histories a lesson that “religion” – access to the transcendental – gives us hope through assurance that our efforts need not be in vain, that business and government, love and war, the individual and the collective, can, with effort and through understanding, provide for the common good.

Thirdly, Patrick O’Sullivan and Vasu Srivibha use the Buddhist sufficiency economy philosophy proposed by his Late Majesty King Bumiphol, Rama IX, of Thailand to teach us the wisdom of moderation, balance and equilibrium in building out our lives for the better.

Lastly, we include two graphs from a very practical new book – Capitalism Reconnected – written by our colleague Jan Peter Balkenende, former prime minister of The Netherlands, and Govert Buijs.

I would be most interested in your thoughts and feedback.

2024 Request for Your Support

I write to ask for your financial support of the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism to enable us to contribute, as best we can, to encouraging commitments from individuals, businesses, NGOs and governments to the ideas of moral capitalism, moral government and moral society.

Here is what we accomplished in last year.

During 2023, as we all saw a war continue in Ukraine and Russia without a peaceful resolution in sight and a new war, viciously commenced against Israel, another war without a peaceful resolution in sight, our work evolved to ask just what is civilization? Can we be civilized if we overlook ethics and morals? But just where should we look for those guiding lights? In ourselves? In others? In divine revelation? In the wisdom of our cultures and ancient philosophers?

Our thinking, shaped by dialogue with many, has more and more examined the intangible – human capital formation and social capital contributions to justice and well-being.

As the American cartoon character Pogo said in the 1950s: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

As in its first meeting in 1986 at Mountain House in Caux, Switzerland, the Caux Round Table, during 2023, sought to solve problems through the application of ethics, complementary ethics drawn collegially from various wisdom traditions speaking to a greater common good for the many, rather than seeking to affirm the power and the privileges of the few.

We sharpened our focus on human and social capitals. We proposed a global ethic of personal responsibility at our July global dialogue. We met with Shi’a Muslim leaders, both academic and clerical, in Najaf, Iraq, to learn more from the personal example of the Prophet Muhammad in promising, through covenants, to respect and protect Christian communities. We drew on teachings of the Buddha, with Thai colleagues, to prioritize the middle way of moderation and equilibrium. We asked for ideas and constructive criticism in monthly meetings, both in-person and through Zoom. We used our monthly newsletter, Pegasus, to broadcast globally ideas and values in harmony with these engagements.

We were skeptical that ESG would be only a fad, a superficial articulation of virtuous intentions, offering little of substance that would turn into actual virtuous behaviors more aligned with the ethics of moral capitalism.

Two articles of note were published in Directors&Boards. Our colleagues, Ibrahim Zein and Ahmed El-Wakil, published a thoughtful and thorough book on the covenants of the Prophet Muhammad. Recovery of the Prophet’s precedent in giving covenants may provide a new way of thinking about how to bring about a lasting peace between Jews and Palestinians.

This work is unique. In a real way, the Caux Round Table has few competitors for its thought leadership.

This year, we will continue to find ideas intersecting with good values that can provide leaders with vision and resolve. We will continue our study of the covenants of the Prophet Muhammad, our partnership with Thai leaders in business, government and the academy. We will ask many to share their thinking in the shaping of a draft global ethic to be submitted to the Summit of the Future in 2024 at the United Nations this coming September. We will convene round tables. We will publish books on Amazon.

You may consider making a contribution to fund specific undertakings:

-Sponsor one or more issues of Pegasus.

-Support a regional round table.

-Sponsor a workshop on the covenants of the Prophet.

-Sponsor a book of essays.

You can donate via PayPal (or visit our homepage – www.cauxroundtable.org – and click the yellow “donate” button), by check (75 West Fifth Street, Suite 219, St. Paul, MN 55102) or by wire transfer (please ask for instructions).

Anything you can give would be most appreciated.

Local Round Tables in 2024: Your Thoughts

We would like to ask our Minnesota participants what time of day would be most convenient for in-person round table events?

We’ve been scheduling events for 9:00 am or over the noon hour on weekdays at the Landmark Center in St. Paul. What about early morning events, say from 7 or 7:30 to 8:30 am or early evening events, say from 5:00 to 6:00 or 6:30 pm? Please let us know.

We plan to draft a proceedings after each event, which would then be shared with relevant local audiences. This would be under the Chatham House rule of non-attribution, unless participants would like to edit the proceedings into a statement with authors.

Also, if you have any specific topics you believe are pressing for attention from community leaders, please send us your suggestions.

You can email us directly at jed@cauxroundtable.net.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Category: News