Opening Remarks by

Davron Makhsudov is Associate Professor, Director of the Imam Maturidi International Scientific Research Center at the International Islamic Academy of Uzbekistan. He defended his doctoral dissertation on “Comparative analysis of the tafsirs of the Hanafi school in Mawarannahr (XIII-XV centuries)” and was conferred the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences in 2020. From 2012 to present, he is a member of the editorial board of the “Light of Islam” scientific journal. In 2021, he became the editor-in-chief of the scientific journal of “Maturidiya”. Dr Makhsudov has supervised the theses of more than 30 master’s and bachelor’s degree students. He is the author of more than 15 textbooks, monographs, books and pamphlets. He has also published more than 40 articles in scientific journals and more than 30 articles in collections and periodicals.

Ambassador Ong Keng Yong is Executive Deputy Chairman of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He is concurrently Director of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS) at RSIS.

Mr Ong continues to hold the position of Ambassador-at-Large  at the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is also Singapore’s non-resident High Commissioner to Pakistan and non-resident Ambassador to Iran. Mr Ong has been the Chairman of the Singapore International Foundation (SIF) since 2015.

Mr Ong was High Commissioner of Singapore to Malaysia from 2011 to 2014. He served as High Commissioner of Singapore to India and concurrently Singapore’s Ambassador to Nepal from 1996 to 1998.

Mr Ong served as 11th Secretary-General of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), based in Jakarta, Indonesia from January 2003 to January 2008.

Mr Ong started his diplomatic career in 1979 and was posted to the Singapore Embassies in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and the United States of America between 1984 and 1994. From September 1998 to December 2002, he was Press Secretary to the then Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Goh Chok Tong, while holding senior appointments in the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, and the People’s Association in Singapore. From 2008 to 2011, he served as Director of the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) in the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.

Mr Ong graduated from the then University of Singapore with a LLB (Hons). He studied at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., USA, and graduated with a MA in Arab Studies.

About the Speakers

Muhammad Haniff Bin Hassan is a Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). He holds a PhD in Strategic Studies from RSIS, Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He received his early education at Aljunied Islamic School. He then pursued higher education at the Faculty of Islamic Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, and graduated with honours in Syar’iah and Civil Law. He is active in volunteer works as member of the Syariah Appeal Board under Islamic Religious Council of Singapore, the Association of Islamic Scholars and Religious Teachers Singapore (PERGAS), Board of Governance of Madrasah Al-Irsyad Al-Islamiyah (Al-Irsyad Islamic School) and Political Film Advisory Committee under the Media Development Authority of Singapore. Some of

his books are The Father of Jihad: `Abd Allah Azzam’s Jihad Ideas and Implications on National Security (2014), Criticism From Within Against Ideology of Al-Qaeda (translation to Malay and Bahasa Indonesia, 2012), Unlicensed to Kill: Countering Imam Samudra’s Justification for the Bali Bombing (English, Malay and Bahasa Indonesia, 2006), Moderation in Islam in the Context of Singapore Muslim Community (ed., in English and Malay, 2004), Muslim… Moderate… Singaporean (Malay and English, 2003).

Jahongir Tahirov is the head of the Department of Studies in Contemporary Islam of the Imam Maturidi International Scientific Research Center. He is currently conducting research on “Ali Qushchi’s work “Sharh Tajrid al-kalam” – an important source of kalam in the Timurid period”. “He has co-authored a number of textbooks including “Islamic Source Studies” (Tashkent: 2019), “Health in the Qur’an and Hadith” (Tashkent: 2005) and “History of the Doctrine of Maturidiyya”.

Andrey Dunaev, Senior Research Fellow, Modern Islamic Studies, Imam Maturidi International Scientific Research Center. His research includes the problems of deradicalisation and resocialisation of adherents of extremist and radical movements. Before joining the Center, he was in the civil service, where he was engaged in legal support of the country’s deradicalisation programs. He is the author of a number of scientific articles.

Mohamed Feisal Mohamed Hassan is a Research Fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR). His research interest is in terrorist rehabilitation, counter-ideology and community engagement. He has spoken on these issues in UK, USA, Pakistan, Denmark, Netherlands, Indonesia, Australia, Italy, Turkey and others. His field research on rehabilitation includes places such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia and others. He is secretary and member of the Singapore’s Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG) and a Religious Rehabilitation Counselor. He graduated from the International Islamic University Malaysia with an Honours Degree in Philosophy. He obtained his Master of Arts Degree in Islamic Thought from the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), IIUM. His thesis is entitled “Relevance of al-Ghazali’s Doctrine of Al-Wasat (The Desired Balanced Middle Way) in Countering The Ideologies of Extremists with Special Reference to the Jemaah Islamiyyah in Singapore”. He also holds a Msc in International Relations from RSIS, NTU. He obtained his PhD from the University of Melbourne, Australia with a thesis entitled “Contextualising wasaṭiyyah from the perspective of the leaders of the Malay/Muslim community in Singapore today”.

Moderators

Tajiev Aziz Shavkatovich is the Scientific Secretary of the Imam Maturidi International Scientific Research Center at the International Islamic Academy of Uzbekistan. He defended his PhD dissertation on “The Essence of Hadiths against Religious Fanaticism” in 2019. He has published a number of articles in Islamic studies, including “The importance of hadiths in combating the threat of takfir” (Tashkent, 2019) and “The expression of religious tolerance in the Hadiths. Lessons of Imam Bukhari” (Samarkand, 2019).

Raffaello Pantucci is a Senior Fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He is the author of We Love Death As You Love Life: Britain’s Suburban Terrorists published by Oxford University Press. Before joining RSIS, he was based at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London where he is currently a Senior Associate Fellow.

Closing Remarks by

Kumar Ramakrishna is Associate Professor, Associate Dean for Policy Studies, Research Adviser to National Security Studies Programme and Head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He has published in numerous internationally refereed journals and co-edited two well-received books on counter-terrorism, The New Terrorism: Anatomy, Trends and Counter-Strategies (2002) as well as After Bali: The Threat of Terrorism in Southeast Asia (2004). He is also the author of numerous single-authored books including Original Sin? Revising the Revisionist Critique of the 1963 Operation Coldstore in Singapore (2015) and Singapore Chronicles: Emergency (2016).