On 18 and 19 november 2013, Dr Manazir and Farooq Murad were invited to attend the Kaiciid Global forum in Vienna. Kaiciid is the acronym for the King abdullah Bin abdulaziz international centre for interreligious and intercultural dialogue, and it was founded in the austrian capital in 2011. its objective is the “encouraging of dialogue among followers of different religions and cultures around the world.”

HRH Prince abdulaziz bin abdullah, saudi arabia’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, welcomed delegates and opened the forum, bringing together over 300 religious leaders, educators, NGO representatives and government of cials to discuss how religions and cultures are depicted in the world today, and to aid the better understanding of these key areas of human concern. engaging youth organisations was crucial to the forum as well as the advancement of inter-religious and inter-cultural education.

The islamic foundation trustees had a bilateral meeting with he dr. faisal al-ammar, director of Kaiciid and other of cials to explore areas of mutual cooperation on how to improve religious and cultural relations, particularly, in interfaith work in europe. they also visited Kaiciid’s newly refurbished centre as well as attended a number of workshops, making useful contribution to the topics discussed.

The event was held to aid “communication, partnership and information exchange, thereby building understanding and mutual bene t among peoples of the world.” attendees established key objectives to aid religious and cultural understanding in the 21st century.