Al-Azhar Grand Imam, Prof. Ahmad At-Tayyeb, said the harsh conditions that the world is going through today encourage the Muslims to be keen to celebrate the anniversary of the revelation of the Noble Qur’an, which is the divine light that has illuminated the whole world in an amazing short period and eliminated chaos and disorder. It established a high-level moral system through Muslim conquests that “changed the course of human history, and opened the doors to progress wide open in various directions.” A few years after the death of the Prophet (pbuh), the two mighty empires that divided the Middle East collapsed in front of the conquests of Muslims; their lands in Iraq, the Levant, Egypt and North Africa became Muslim lands, and they have remained so until today.

During his speech today at the celebration of Laylat ul-Qadr (Night of Glory) at Al-Manara Center, His Eminence stressed that the Muslim conquests were not colonial ones that depended on methods of looting, oppression and control, and the policies of domination, and leaving the conquered country in ruins. On the contrary, they were “a new flood of life, brimming with knowledge, justice, freedom and equality, flowing through the veins of those powerless peoples.” This matter made historians and scholars of civilizations, old and new, stand amazed by this phenomenon, which has eluded all accounts of power, the logic of money, the rumble of weapons and the devastation of wars.

The Grand Imam made it clear that some scholars tried to explain the secret of the Muslims’ victories, in a way that does not agree with the philosophy of these conquests, but rather in contradiction to the teachings of the Qur’an that the conquerors carried and conveyed to people. They conveyed a pure message of peace and cooperation, avoiding fighting as much as possible. Thus, they implemented the instructions of their Prophet (pbuh) and his commands in which he says, “O people! Do not wish to meet your enemies and ask Allah for safety”. This is typically the case unless fighting becomes an imposed necessity, when there is no escape from confronting the combatant aggressor. His Eminence drew attention to the fact that many Western scholars realized the real reason why peoples welcomed the Muslim conquerors, and received them as sincere saviors. Those scholars emphasized that the real reason for this amazing phenomenon is in the Qur’an, which call people for applying the values of justice and equality and the prohibition of injustice, as well as the freedom of belief that culminated in the right to choose belief or unbelief. It called for the replacement of the principle of war and conflict with the principle of acquaintance and other values that guarantee a happy and dignified life.

Today, Wednesday, the Ministry of Endowments has organized a major celebration of Laylat ul-Qadr, at the Al-Manara Conference Center. Among the important figures who attended the celebration are President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the Grand Imam Prof. Ahmed At-Tayyeb, Dr. Mostafa Madbouly, Prime Minister, the Speakers of the House of Representatives and Senate, and a large number of religious, political and media figures.