Professor Stephen J. Toope

Dear Mohammed,

Reaching 75 years is remarkable for any company, and at Cambridge we are delighted to congratulate Abdul Latif Jameel, and to celebrate with you.

Achieving this milestone is hardly surprising, given your family’s passion, dedication and commitment to serving others, inspired, of course, by the pioneering spirit of the late Abdul Latif Jameel.  Cambridge is honoured to have had its own relationship with the Jameel family for almost two decades.  Almost halfway through my tenure as Vice-Chancellor, I have grown to cherish the privilege of developing relationships with generous supporters such as the Jameels, whose commitment to solving global challenges is making a real difference, enabling truly life-changing work.

That includes the Cambridge Interfaith Programme (CIP), which promotes understanding of the complex and diverse relationships between religious traditions and the secular world.  Through such understanding comes the flourishing of ideas and the ability to work together to build a better future.

We are profoundly grateful to the Jameel family for enabling the CIP to become a pre-eminent centre for interfaith engagement, attracting outstanding researchers, and setting a foundation on which to build projects that have been emulated at institutions from the US to India to China.  From projects researching the place of religion in modern universities to evaluating the place of religion in serving the common good; from symposiums and summer schools to the publication of a book on scripture and violence, the CIP is at the forefront of developments in religious thought, and ranks amongst the very top programmes in the world.

Through developing links between academia and government and fostering dialogue among policymakers, charities, and museums, the CIP has been able to encourage discussion and respect among communities both nationally and internationally.  The CIP’s A Common Word, a statement of peace and friendship, was signed by more than 130 Muslim scholars.  Christian leaders including Pope Benedict responded and the initiative inspired major international conferences and more than 600 articles in English. 

Such projects make a profound contribution towards peace.

Once more I congratulate you and your family on your tremendous achievements.  Your father’s legacy continues to resonate through your generous philanthropy, and I thank you for placing your trust in Cambridge to fulfil your mission of interfaith and intercultural understanding.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Stephen J. Toope
Vice-Chancellor
The University of Cambridge

 

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