His Eminence the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ash-Sharif, Prof. Ahmad At-Tayyeb, received the Kazakh Minister of Information and Social Development, Dauren Abayev during the latter’s visit to Cairo. Mr. Abayev conveyed the greetings of Kazakh President, Nursultan Nazarbayev to the Grand Imam on the new Hijri year, stressing that the Grand Imam occupies a special place in the hearts of all Kazakhs as the top symbolic figure and referential authority for Muslims around the world. He added that his country is closely following up with the efforts and movements of the Grand Imam to promote peace and build bridges of dialogue and cooperation between religions. He then indicated that the world should invest in these efforts, which represent the world's hope for achieving peace, and confronting extremism, terrorism and bloodshed.

For his part, the Grand Imam stated that Al-Azhar Ash-Sharif plays its role in mainstreaming peace and communicating with religious leaders around the world, proceeding from its message and approach that builds on pluralism and acceptance of the other. The Grand Imam added that Al-Azhar underscores the message that religions are revealed for the goodness and peace of humanity, not to fuel wars and conflicts. He then concluded that Al-Azhar is ready to offer more support to Kazakhstan in academic and missionary fields through increasing the number of scholarships offered to Kazakh students to join Al-Azhar, and training Kazakh imams to deal with contemporary issues, like extremism and terrorism.