The Continuing Education Unit at the Ibn Rushd College of Education for Human Sciences at the University of Baghdad held a workshop entitled (The Intellectual Impact of Ali bin Abi Talib “Peace be upon him” in Orientalist Thought) delivered by Prof. Dr. Wassan Ibrahim Hussein, Dr. Ghadeer Salam Aref, Assistant Lecturer Zainab Jassim Khudair and Assistant Teacher Ali Jabbar Sabr in the presence of a number of teachers, employees and students of the college.
The importance of the workshop lies in the statement of Imam Ali bin Abi Talib (peace be upon him) is, in fact, history is one, whether we know it or not, history and truth acquiesce that he has a living conscience and oppression, and the father of martyrs and free people, which is the voice of human justice, and the eternal personality of the East.
The workshop was divided into several axes, where the first axis included glimpses of the Orientalist view of Imam Ali (peace be upon him), and the personality of Ali bin Abi Talib (peace be upon him) in Orientalist thought, while the second axis was concerned with Nahj al-Balaghah in orientalist thought, and Ali bin Abi Talib (peace be upon him) in Arab sources.
The workshop concluded with a number of recommendations, most notably, research in the products of orientalists who were interested in the Islamic heritage is one of the difficult research for several reasons, including the multiplicity of orientalist languages, as their studies were not written in one foreign language, and the huge amount of what they wrote, authored, and achieved about the Islamic heritage, in addition to research and articles written in magazines, newspapers and periodicals different and many can not stand on accurate statistics for them.