A few years ago, despite sensing that the horizon was blocked in the countries of the Levant and the difficulty of producing solutions to its crises in the near future, we decided, as a group that does not exceed the number of fingers on one hand, to make it a fist, believing that there is no salvation except through science and knowledge, and that the issue in the Levant lies in the high percentage of speech and the low percentage of language that is... consciousness.
A troubled Orient that falsifies its history and points of light, and slowly sinks into fanaticism, darkness, obscurantism, illiteracy, takfirism, and isolationism, while the universe is in the age of knowledge and scientific production.
In order not to be false witnesses or visitors to sidewalk cafes, we decided to try to collect the fragments of our minds hitting the bottom, so we had to work silently, armed with the wills and brains of those who believe in changing the status quo through knowledge, so we established the "Levant for Culture and Development" association, and we suffered a lot in obtaining knowledge and news, because some of those who hold the joints of the decision are factional and isolationist and afraid to be open to the wide range, and the association is headed by Mr. Joan Hobeish.
The Mashreq Center for Research and Studies, an independent center concerned with historical, political, economic, economic, social, cultural, anthropological and demographic research and studies in the Levant, as well as issuing books and publications and holding conferences related to Levantine affairs, was born out of this association.
Before we announced anything and even the name, we went into knowledge production and contracted a number of acclaimed academics to write a series of books, some of which have been printed so far:
1. History of the Contemporary Levant by Dr. Kamal Deeb.
2. Religions of the Levant by Dr. Khazal Al-Majidi.
3. The Levant in the Middle Ages by Dr. Elias Al-Qattar.
4. The Demography of the Levant by Dr. Shawki Attieh.
5. The Levant Politically 1918-2018 by Dr. Jamal Wakim.
6. Levantine Folklore, by Dr. Atef Attieh.
7. History of the Ancient Levant, by Dr. Bashar Khalif.
A booklet on the Levant and Mashreq by Ghassan al-Shami was previously published.
The book "The Future of the Christians of the Levant" was recently published, which includes the papers presented by a number of Mashreqi academics at a conference organized by the Hungarian Center for Oriental Christianity Studies in cooperation with our center.
Our plan is to release other books and have them on the center's website.
The coronavirus crisis and the crises in Lebanon and the Levant have limited our activity, but we continue to work, and we are ready to cooperate with academics, intellectuals and thinkers in the Levant to produce a rich knowledge bag that will be a resource for future generations, and we emphasize that we only want science and knowledge to spread, because they are the condition for our existence and the existence of this beautiful and tortured Levant.
We hope that the center will become a house of knowledge for all those who believe in reason as a guiding law, and we welcome all scientific efforts that seek the advancement of this Levant and the Arab world.
With love and respect.
Director of Mashreq Center for Research and Studies
Ghassan al-Shami