I have not written in Arabic for years. This was not an abandonment of the language, but an immersion in another one: the language of institutions, negotiations, and international mediation—where sentences are weighed by what they produce, not by how they are adorned. When I returned to the Kingdom, I discovered that return is not only to place, but to voice—as though Arabic, in moments of transformation, is not a decorative language, but a language of foundation.

Two weeks ago, I was in Diriyah—specifically at At-Turaif—where the past does not pursue you as nostalgia, but confronts you as method: how disagreement is governed in the Arabian Peninsula until it becomes rule; how authority is transformed into institutions; and how legitimacy is built as discipline before it becomes a slogan.

A Japanese physician accompanied us on that visit—elderly, a reader of history, with no selfie stick and no appetite for spectacle. She carried a small notebook and a large question. Quietly, in a way that almost embarrasses you, she said:
“I am not here for photographs… I am here for the Founder.”
When we stood before his image, she bowed—fully, in the Japanese manner—as a gesture of respect for the beginning. Then, as if placing a final seal on the journey, she insisted that we visit Al-Oud cemetery.

Here, the writer admits that he smiled inwardly at the cultural irony. Visiting cemeteries in our context has its supporters and its critics; for many, it remains a contentious subject. For her, however, it was part of the method. It was not an emotional visit as much as it was… a court of appeal for history. As if she were saying: I do not understand nations through their daily noise; I understand them through their beginnings.

I recalled my retirement from teaching international law in the United Kingdom, and how I had assumed that the end of that path would be a quiet victory. I did not expect to witness international law itself—the very system we taught and litigated under—behaving like a machine that had lost its operating manual: more rules, less trust; more rhetoric, fewer results. The problem is not that the world has become “less moral,” but that its institutional legitimacy is eroding.

At the same time, we are entering a new era: a transition to the knowledge economy—where power no longer resides only in factories and weapons, but in the measure of knowledge itself: data, models, the AI stack, climate systems, energy transition, and intangible digital assets. Amid the tensions between North and South, East and West, one simple lesson becomes clear: when institutions fail, describing collapse is not enough. We must return to the moment of foundation to understand how order is made.

This is not an intellectual initiative modelled on Davos.
It is a reading from At-Turaif: an attempt to inspire the world through an Arab logic of foundation—one that opens horizons, rather than merely cataloguing collapse.

We thank Al-Madinah, and upon its inhabitant be the best of prayers and peace.
In the name of God, we begin.

Order begins in At-Turaif… and is tested in the world.

Prof. Dr. Malik Ãl-Dahlan

Professor of Law and specialist in international law; International Mediator.
Honorary Professor, University of St Andrews;
Emeritus Professor of International Law and Public Policy, Queen Mary University of London, and;
Member, Peterhouse, University of Cambridge.