A conference on such a vital topic. This is a subject that it at the foundation of modern education and deserves our best attention. I look forward to being with the distinguished guests, hosts, & fellow participants. I am particularly excited to interact with the students and to listen to their perspectives and ideas and to learn together with all of you in these days ahead

I will be interested to learn from Islamic responses to scientific endeavour, particularly whether or not they lead to any revision in basic religious dispositions. Given the lively debate in both Christian and Islamic literature on these issues I will be eager to note the contours of how these debates are shaped in both traditions, comparing and contrasting each tradition.