Within the AIITC Academy “Peoples and Culture”, the Albanian Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization held an online meeting on “Happiness from the Islamic perspective”. Invited to this meeting was Prof. Dr. Mesut Idriz. Born in Northern Macedonia, he graduated from the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization. He has taught at many higher education institutions around the world. He has published, edited and translated many books and academic articles on the Balkans, Ottoman history, Islamic education and civilization, etc. He is currently Head of the Department of Islamic History and Civilization at Sharjah University in the United Arab Emirates.
The Academy “Peoples and Culture” was opened by the Director of AIITC, Dr. Ardian Muhaj, who praised the figure of Prof. Idriz for his many contributions to Islamic education and civilization, considering the topic extremely current for the situation that the whole world is going through today.
While Prof. Dr. Mesut Idriz began his speech by emphasizing that still today no one has managed to give a complete definition of happiness. According to him, the essence of this term has its source in the Qur’an. The interpretation of happiness should be made according to the meanings of the Qur’an, where interesting is the fact that the concept of happiness is not explained directly, but in a metaphorical sense, through opposites. The negative phenomena take you away from happiness. He concluded that we should refer to Quan to understand true happiness; that the elements of sadness, mourning and tragedy are not part of Islam, but have come from other cultures.
