Greetings from Al-Azhar Ash-Sharif and the Muslim Council of Elders to HE Pope Francis and thanks to him for kindly accepting the invitation to make a historic visit to Egypt and Al-Azhar Ash-Sharif. This timely visit comes in response to Al-Azhar’s call for participation in its international peace conference. Peace is now sought by miserable and vulnerable people and countries. Some of those people are displaced and some others are fleeing from their homelands to other remote countries, risking their lives in the journey. Some of them even lost their lives on seashores, in a saddening human tragedy. We do not miss the truth when we say that “this is unprecedented in human history!”
Wise and conscientious people are still helplessly searching for a plausible reason behind these tragedies for which we are destined to pay the heavy price of our lives. The only detectable reason behind these disasters, that have afflicted the poor, orphans, widows and the elderly, is arms trade that keep death factories in operation to make excessive gains sustained by dubious deals and reckless international decisions.
It is frustrating that this acute crisis occurs in the twenty-first century, the century of urbanization, advancement, human rights, and tremendous scientific and technical progress. It is the era of peace institutions and security councils, and of criminalization of the threat or use of force in international relations. It is even the era of social doctrines and human philosophies, and the preaching of absolute equality and single class society, secular modernity, postmodernity, etc. of these social and philosophical achievements that characterize our modern age. The central question in this paradoxical situation is how world peace, despite all these achievements, have become a lost paradise?
The answer – to which I think you would agree with me - is the modern civilization’s disregard for divine religions and their established moral values that are not liable to change under different whims and desires. On top of these values are fraternity, acquaintance, and compassion among people. Divine religions constantly remind that all of creation are Allah’s dependents, and that the most beloved of them to Allah are the most beneficial to His dependents. Accordingly, the world should not turn into a jungle where ferocious beasts prey on each other. The only viable solution, as indicated by judicious thinkers in the West and the East, is to restore awareness about the messages of heaven, and subject the deviant modernist discourse to a deep critical reading that delivers the human mind from the poverty and emptiness of empirical philosophy, and the arrogance of the individual domineering and tyrannical minds. Hence, the postmodern era should not be confined to embellishing or patching up these doctrines with imaginary and emotional philosophies.
According to philosophers and believers, it is inevitable to reformulate this entire vision within a context of fraternity and compassion. This context would serve as an antidote that infuses life into philosophical doctrines and scientific and practical universal models. This antidote is found only in the haven of religion. In my opinion, the earth is now ready for religions to take their role in accentuating the values of peace, justice, equality, and respect for human beings, regardless of their religion, color, race or language. The Glorious Qur’an reads, “Indeed, We have dignified the children of Adam, carried them on land and sea, granted them good and lawful provisions, and privileged them far above many of Our creatures.” (Qur’an, 17: 70) Regarding, acquaintance and compassion, the Glorious Qur’an also reads, “O humanity! Indeed, We created you from a male and a female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you may know one another. Surely the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous among you.” (Qur’an, 49: 13)
However, we should first work on redress the image of religions through refuting what is falsely attributed to them of misconceptions, misapplications, and pretentious devoutness that kindle conflicts, hate and violence. We should not blame the religions for the mistakes of a reckless few of their followers. Islam should not be dismissed as a terrorist religion when a few of its followers hijack and misinterpret its texts and then use them as a pretext for killing or frightening the innocent or spreading corruption on earth, being provided with money, arms and training by some other forces. Likewise, Christianity should not be branded as a religion of terrorism because a group of believers carried the cross and began to take lives without discrimination. Also, Judaism should not be called a religion of terrorism because some Jews abuse the teachings of Moses (pbuh) in occupying lands and claiming lives and subduing millions of right-holders of the helpless Palestinians.
In the same vein, European civilization should not be dismissed as a civilization of terror only because two world wars broke amidst it and claimed more than seventy million lives; nor should the American civilization be branded as a civilization of terror because of what the havoc Americans wreaked in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These are all deviations from the path of religions and from the logic of civilizations. Opening the door for such accusations, as is now done against Islam, no religion, regime, civilization, or history would be safe from allegations of violence and terrorism. We appreciate His Holiness the Pope for his fair statements that defend Islam and the Muslims against the accusation of violence and terrorism. We have sensed in him - and in the constellation of fathers of the Western and Eastern churches - keen respect for the world beliefs and religions and their symbolic figures. They all showed a desire to stand together in the face of those who abuse religions or invest them in igniting conflicts among the believers. Similarly, Al-Azhar keeps striving for cooperation in the field of Daˁwah (religious missionary) and for consolidation of the philosophy of coexistence. It also works on reviving dialogue, respecting the beliefs of others, and working together on the spacious common grounds among the followers of different religions. Let us strive together for the sake of the weak, the hungry, the frightened, the captives and the tormented, without partial classification or discrimination. Let’s work together on delivering the families from moral deviations sustained by immoral scholarship and protecting the environment from corruption. Let’s stand together in face of hegemonic policies and theories of clash of civilization and end of history, against calls to atheist, Machiavellian mentality, secular modernity, and man-deifying philosophies, and the consequent tragedies and disasters everywhere. I ask Allah Almighty, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate, to bliss our meeting and to make it a genuine step towards collective cooperation in promoting the culture of peace, fraternity and coexistence.