H.E. the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Prof. Ahmad At-Tayyeb, launched East-West dialogue rounds several years ago to build bridges of dialogue and cooperation between the East and the West. During one of these dialogue rounds between Al-Azhar and the Archdiocese of Canterbury, held in Abu Dhabi, the Grand Imam agreed with the Archbishop of Canterbury to let an elite group of youth with creative initiatives lead a round of East-West dialogue, in an attempt to coordinate efforts and standardize visions towards contemporary issues, like citizenship, peace and confronting extremist ideology. This move also aimed at giving young people the opportunity to integrate and follow the steps taken on this track.

Hence, the forum aimed to form youth working groups from the East and the West to discuss, through intensive workshops, selected ideas and themes related to their role in building just peace and promoting a culture of coexistence and integration, as well as ways to participate in creating the future they hope to have.

The forum discussions focused on developing a practical vision for coordinating efforts, mostly engaged by the youth, to address contemporary issues, like peaceful coexistence, integration, citizenship, confronting extremist ideology, and putting forward visions and initiatives that can be adopted, sustained and developed for future implementation by concerned institutions. This would serve as a nucleus for a youth working group that would later be joined by young people with determination and valuable visions from around the world who seek to contribute to building a better world where goodness and peace prevail.

This distinguished youth gathering aims to build an international team of promising peace-loving youth to participate in initiatives and events supported by Al-Azhar Ash-Sharif and the Muslim Council of Elders in cooperation with the Archdiocese of Canterbury. Such initiatives and events shall be implemented by those youth and their peers around the world to build a better world where everyone lives in wellness and peace.

25 youth from the Arab world, selected by Al-Azhar and the Muslim Council of Elders, participated in the forum, along with 25 youth from Europe, selected by the Archdiocese of Canterbury in London. The selection was made according to a set of criteria, especially the age of the participants (20-25 years old), and the candidate’s engagement in social, student, cultural or religious activities, and good command of English and other communication skills necessary for effective participation in the forum. The group selected by Al-Azhar and the Muslim Council of Elders belong to different Arab countries, given the keenness to maintain diversity among the participants, through selecting candidates of different religious, educational and cultural backgrounds. This reflected the richness of the East and its pluralist intellectual and cultural roots.

For this purpose, Al-Azhar Ash-Sharif organized preparatory workshops under the auspices of the Grand Imam. These workshops focused on conducting dialogue with the youth participating in the forum on the concept of the humanity of religions and how to consolidate the values of tolerance and dialogue, contribute to peacemaking, and introduce effective models of dialogue among religious institutions.

 The forum's activities were launched on July 8, 2018, and the fifty youths participated in a one-week training course at the University of Cambridge with the aim of enhancing their human communication, exchange of opinions, knowledge and perceptions on issues addressed in the forum. The course program also included lectures and workshops aimed at honing youth skills in dealing with issues of peace and peaceful coexistence, confronting violence, reducing conflicts, and actively engaging in social work.

Then, the participants moved to Lambeth Palace in London for a round of lectures and workshops before holding a final open meeting with both the Grand Imam and Dr. Justin Welby, Archbishop of the Church of Canterbury. Through the meeting, the two religious leaders aimed to listen to the visions, experiences, initiatives and proposals of the youth.

This forum is one of the pioneering youth experiences in the field of East-West dialogue. It is also a true nucleus for future action in many world countries.

The following is the Grand Imam’s statement:

 “In The Name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful

Oh young people gathered in this hall, representatives of the world youth from the West and the East, I do greet you all, and your sparkling thought, firm determination, strong will, and steady ambitions. I am not one of you and have no right to speak on your behalf, especially as my youth has faded, its sun has set, and my young dreams, aspirations, resoluteness and leaps have dispersed. Yet the concerns of my generation and the afflictions that I carried along my vivid youth to oldness are still burdening my shoulders and sentiments. They perplex me and urge me to exclaim about what has recently happened and what is now happening. I come from a generation that could be named the generation of war victims in the Arab and the Muslim East. 

Seventy years have elapsed for the individuals of this generation during which they often heard the groaning sound of war aircrafts, explosions, and the perceived the smell of gunpowder and gas. In addition, they were more familiar with scenes of bloodshed and severed limbs than with listening to chants, poetry and music, or with seeing aesthetic arts or listening to the singing of nightingales or the cooing of pigeons.

I was born in 1946 when the world had not yet wiped out its tears due to the scourges of the World War II. Then Europe had lost more than 75 million of its dear young men and women, children and aged people as a result of impulsive dictatorial decisions giving no consideration to human inviolability and sacredness as enshrined by Allah from above the seven heavens. Allah has preferred man to the rest of His creatures, yet, those tyrants deemed man’s blood cheap, none the less all religions, laws, and refined human ethics protected its blood and prohibited bloodshed unless ruled by justice.  

The first decade of my childhood hardly elapsed peacefully when I experienced a new era of trepidation in my village which embraces the monuments of the Valley of Kings and the Valley of Queens. The village lies on the west bank of the ancient and magnificent city of Luxor. We still lived gloomy nights because of bombardment and devastation. Another decade had been barely spent when we were overwhelmed by a more ferocious and cruel war than the prior one; then we were engaged in a third war by virtue of which we regained our dignity and restored our usurped lands. 

Nonetheless, our Arab and Muslim world had hardly enjoyed any lasting security or peace as the rest of the world peoples in the east and the west than we lost peace anew and started the so-called “war against terrorism”. It is a new form of borderless war. Terrorism is capable of causing death and devastation to its victims of children, women, young and aged people at houses, streets, stores, schools, theatres, clubs, and assemblies. Even male and female worshippers who prayed at mosques, churches, and other worshipping places were hounded by such new terrorist acts. They and their children were drowned in their blood while praying. In the context of this new form of horror, no one on earth could ensure personal or familial safety in the west and the east alike.

We were hopeful that terrorism would be diminished at the turn of the twenty first century and that the civilized world would regard such tampering with spirits and bodies as barbarian conduct that is inharmonious with the humankind of this century. Science, economy, philosophy, literature, art, and politics of this century have perfectly advanced and developed; nevertheless we were disappointed at September 11 attack at the turn of the century. The innocent victims and bloodshed brought tears into the eyes of the people in the East and the West. As a result, complicated repercussions, stances and highly complicated results were unfolded and entailed that Islam and Muslims be solely in charge of such terrorism. Then, facts were reversed and Islam which preachs peace and fraternity, has become a source of apprehension and hallucination. 

You know better than me what is meant by “Islamophobia” which I do not want to dwell much on. I just would like to clarify that Islamophobia is a hackneyed and an intentionally feigned phenomenon that could not be bought by smart and fair people who proceeded to analyse this phenomenon. In brief, I would like to say that if Islam was truly a religion of terrorism, it would inevitable be the case that all its victims were non-Muslims. However, reality demonstrates that Muslims have always been victims of terrorism. They are targeted by its guns and heinous means of murder. Muslims are the ones who pay dear price such as bloodshed, devastation, and homelessness. Facts show that the number of non-Muslim victims is scanty and incomparable with that of the Muslims. We, as Muslims, believe that “Whoever kills in aggression or oppression, it is as if he had slain the entire humanity and whoever saves one, enables one to live by protecting him/her from death risks, it is as if he had saved the whole of humankind. Hence, I wonder if is it conceivable for the mind the emergence of Christian terrorism whose majority of victims would be Christians!

It is reasonably imperative to state, in such cases, that terrorism does not reflect religion and murder cannot be committed under its banner. Terrorism rather suffocates religions as a result of cheating, forging, and betraying the interpretation, and explanation of religious texts. The aim is to perpetrate crimes prohibited by religions and holy books in sheer violation of the true messages of the sacred texts.

Isn’t it true that such paradoxes give evidence that terrorism does not embody religions or its believers? It is rather a case of intellectual deviation and psychological illness. It attempts to find grounds for their crimes before its followers. Therefore, it has been rightfully said that terrorism has no religion or a land and it is our duty is to unveil and encounter terrorism and liberate religion from its grip with our utmost force.

O Youth,

Do not believe the allegations that divine religions are the causes of wars and catastrophes among people, or that we have to renounce them and replace them with progression, scientific, technical, and technological development. This is a void issue in the view of faith believers that cannot be debated here for time constraints. With the rest of believers of religious messages, I rather hold conviction that it is the absence of religion, religious values and morals that are the main causes of contemporary man’s misery and confusion. In addition, our contemporary civilization has lost much of what is needed by humanity in its present-day course. It has become almost a meaningless civilization since it turned its back to divine guidance. Many sage people of the contemporary age are positive that human fraternity is almost impossible to be materialized in life where injustices and diseases are overwhelming, spoiling cooperation ties among the individuals and peoples. 

O youth, if you regard religion responsible for bloodshed, then you ought to charge the modern civilization with the responsibility of the bloodshed of the last century in Europe, Asia, and Africa. It was even responsible for the eruption of wars at the turn of the century that are still in process so far, leaving ravaged-lands behind.

Is it possible to turn a blind eye to the photos of piles of corpses of children, men, and women under the debris of demolished buildings, on the shores of seas and rivers as if they were just ordinary photos that people could regard while eating their meals, and spending their leisure time watching the mass media?

Isn’t it one case of absence of the human conscience, or a critical case of human conscience comma in which case we do not know which course it is taking?

However, it is fruitless to repeat what I have always reiterated in various fora and councils in Europe, south east Asia and elsewhere that Muslim intellectual thinkers, scholars, educated people, and politicians unanimously condemned September 11 attacks and its repercussions. They further exonerated themselves from all the incidents of black terrorism and of its perpetrators and declared their absolute rejection in the media, books, articles, seminars, and international conferences. Despite the efforts exerted to exonerate Islam and Muslims from those nefarious crimes, the image of “Islamophobia” still sticks to the minds of a large sector of young people in the West. Thus, it weakens, to a large or small extent, your message for instilling the East-West dialogue.

O Youth!

I do not have to remind you of the black clouds looming in the horizons today due to the application of some contemporary political theories at the top of which are “the Clash of Civilization”, “the End of History”, and “Globalization” as well as others which can easily replace the human souls with armament economies.

It is inescapable for world wise people to revisit and rectify such policies, and restore the values of truth, justice, and equality among people, in addition to showing respect to the Other so as to save entire peoples who suffer from death, ignorance, diseases, desperation, and hopelessness.

We have to be aware that if those illnesses are left internationally uncured and tempted by arrogance, haughtiness, discrimination and classification of people as masters and subjects, civilized and primitive, black and white, then undoubtedly such contagious illnesses will rapidly cross the borders and continents, besides their capability to draw us back to the dark ages.

It is my belief that the first sure sound step on this difficult path is the East-West agreement on common human interests. The optimum means for this end is dialogue which firstly rectifies the West and the Western civilization image in the eyes of the Arabs and Muslims, and vice versa, so as to open doors for reciprocity, mutual recognition, tolerance, and search of common grounds which are abundantly available in religions. Undoubtedly, you are the most capable of carrying the lantern and venture into such a long noble path. 

It is my conviction that Allah Almighty Who created us with His Mercy and Care will never leave His creatures susceptible to the games of careless devils. He Almighty is able to provide for the means necessary to take the humanity back to the shore of peace. You, Emerging Peacemakers, are undoubtedly the key of aspiration and the achievers of dreams.

Thanks for your good listening!