Al-Azhar Grand Imam and MCE Chairman: The steadfastness of human conscience in the face of massacres is the last hope for humanity.

I appreciate the honorable stances of the free people all over the world whose voices have risen in condemnation of the Gaza massacres that broke the human heart and conscience.

There will be no peace in the Middle East without the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

I salute the countries that have recognized the State of Palestine; their courage embodies the awakening of human conscience.

Wretched is the freedom that deprives the weak of their sacred right to live on their own land.

The world must subject technology to the values of justice and human conscience.

The Human Fraternity Document, which I signed with my late brother, Pope Francis, embodies the conscience of the free world.

We are working with the Vatican to issue a global charter on the ethics of artificial intelligence.

There can be no peace without justice, and no justice with the hegemony of the arms industry.

Senseless wars have revealed the collapse of the moral order in the world.

The world collapses morally when values are separated from faith; racism and tyranny have dealt a fatal blow to international justice.

Peace cannot be built on the ruins of injustice, and global crises have exposed the bankruptcy of the modern human conscience.

His Eminence the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Al-Sharif and Chairman of the Muslim Council of Elders (MCE), Prof. Ahmad al-Tayyeb participated in the global summit held by the Sant'Egidio Community in the Italian capital, Rome, titled the “World Summit Finding the Courage for Peace" in the presence of the Italian President, Sergio Mattarella, Queen Mathilde of Belgium, and prominent religious leaders and thinkers from around the world.

In his speech, His Eminence affirmed that the concept of absolute justice is the golden rule upon which the heavens and the earth were established, and Allah made it a guarantor of human rights in equality, freedom, dignity, security, peace, and human brotherhood among people despite their differences in race, gender, color, religion, and language.

The Grand Imam explained that the deliberate neglect of these values by contemporary civilization has led to senseless wars imposed on the poor who do not possess the means and equipment to repel the cruel-hearted aggressors who mock human dignity and sanctity, which Allah has warned against violating in His books and holy revelation. 

This comes in addition to economic crises such as poverty, unemployment, and famine, and the division of the world into a wealthy and prosperous North and a poor South burdened with wars, famines, debts, diseases, epidemics, and environmental crises resulting from the depletion of natural resources, and other hardships and misfortunes of life.

His Eminence added that the social crises that afflict nations and tamper with their beliefs, sanctities, and religious and moral principles, never cease to target the “family unit.” They export deviant alternatives that are rejected by religions and morals, sound and correct tastes, and rejected by the human nature that people have inherited from the time of Adam (PBUH) until this day.

His Eminence explained that what human beings lack currently is “the values of justice and fairness,” the absence of which has led to severe confusion in the concepts and standards that distinguish between the limits of good and evil, beauty and ugliness, and right and wrong. It has become common to see injustice adorned in the garb of law; as well as tyranny, hegemony, and the arrogance of power imposed on the poor and weak in the name of the global order, and tragedies and violations of sanctities justified by interests and benefits.

The Grand Imam emphasized that we have a lesson to learn from the wars that have afflicted our safe East. These wars, as soon as their first spark begins, are accompanied by a series of atrocities, from the destruction of homes still inhabited, to the displacement of thousands of women, the elderly, and young people, to the starvation of children to death, and the enjoyment of violating human dignity and abusing it in full view and hearing of the civilized world in the 21st century. The Grand Imam deplored the wretched freedom that confiscates from the weak their sacred right to life on their land, and the wretched justice that allows and justifies the perpetration of these evils.

The Grand Imam affirmed his appreciation for the countries that recognized the State of Palestine during the recent United Nations meetings. His Eminence stated: “I must take this opportunity to express my sincere appreciation to the countries that have recognized the State of Palestine. I commend them for this courageous act, which embodies the awakening of human conscience and its victory for the usurped Palestinian right. We all hope that this recognition will be a practical step towards enabling the Palestinian people to attain their legitimate rights, foremost among them is the establishment of their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

He pointed out that the international community today agrees that the two-state solution is the only way to achieve peace in the region and the world, and that there can be no peace in the Middle East without the establishment of the Palestinian state. He emphasized his appreciation for the honorable stances of the free people of the world—women, men, children, and elders—in many countries, whose voices have risen in condemnation of the Gaza massacres that have broken the human heart and conscience, and darkened the pages of modern history.

His Eminence affirmed that this tragedy, which has been weighing heavily on our chests for more than two years, reveals a serious flaw in the structure of the international system and a profound disturbance in its policies, and that international peace has become subject to the balance of power and its intensity, the arms trade and its profits, wars and their economies. All these factors are completely isolated from right and justice, from the voice of duty and conscience, from the innate tendencies that Allah created people with, and from logic and reason that Allah granted people justly.

The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar stressed that these “complex crises” indicate a severe disturbance that has afflicted the global order, causing it to lose its proper course and emboldening it to apply double standards, or even a hundred standards if necessary. This affliction, or this moral disease that has fatally struck international justice, can only be explained by abhorrent racism and tyranny on earth, which are fundamentally incompatible with the laws of “absolute justice” whose foundations were laid by Islam, and indeed by all divine messages before it. These principles were also believed by great philosophers, from Plato and Aristotle to Al-Farabi and Ibn Rushd, and even by contemporary European philosophers who believed in the ethics of duty and human conscience.

His Eminence continued: “We must know that when justice is absent, injustice takes its place. With injustice, values disappear and vanish, and man loses his humanity to base material interests and ambitions, and false bullying and tyranny. When the weak are deprived of their rights, and the oppressor is honored for depriving them of these rights, and when man becomes a trivial number in the calculations of politics and a cheap commodity, then we realize that the sun of truth has set, and that the world is falling into a moral void that threatens the collapse of systems before the collapse of values and morals.”

The Grand Imam added, “For this reason, Al-Azhar, the Muslim Council of Elders (MCE), and the Vatican City State took action to launch the historic Human Fraternity Document, which I signed with my late brother, His Holiness Pope Francis, in Abu Dhabi in 2019. In it, we clarified that peace is not a negative thing represented by the absence of weapons, as this is impossible, but rather it is a positive and existential thing represented by the presence of justice. We explained that justice is not a victory of one party over another, but rather a victory of humanity over the impulses of selfishness, domination, and material greed that control our social, economic, and behavioral lives.”

His Eminence pointed out that artificial intelligence has become one of the driving forces that make a big difference in societies. Therefore, we have an ethical role to play in harnessing this technology to build a more equitable and just future for humanity. He added, “We must realize that safeguarding our values and spiritual and religious heritage in the uses of this new technology is not a recreational option, but rather an ethical commitment and a major human responsibility. I would not be exaggerating if I said that today we stand at a civilizational crossroads: either we let this new invention perpetuate civilizational and moral decline, or we use it as a driving force to correct the course of humanity.”

He continued, “I had begun, with my late brother Pope Francis, to draft a ‘charter’ for the ethics of artificial intelligence, but - before it was completed - fate and the circumstances of his illness and death delayed the issuance of this important document. Today, joint teams from Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, the Vatican and the MCE are working to complete this document, so that it may be a global ethical and humanitarian reference that regulates the correct relationship between man and the modern technologies produced by his hands, and ensures that artificial intelligence remains a servant of humanity and not a sword raised against it.”

The Grand Imam concluded by emphasizing that the world today is in dire need of justice to restore its tranquility, and of reviving a human conscience that understands that injustice – however small – is a spark capable of burning peace anywhere, and that every person who is wronged in this world is a wound in the body of humanity that will not heal. He added that this world will not overcome its crises unless it believes that justice is the supreme law of life, and that peace is its natural fruit. He pointed out that the cause of corruption today is the separation between morality and faith, and the attempt to preserve morality while excluding faith. When morality is not guided by divine religion, it drifts aimlessly, and becomes a tool for conflict, greed, and the crushing of the poor and the weak.