His Eminence Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ash-Sharif, Prof. Ahmad At-Tayyeb, received Mr. Miguel Moratinos, the High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) to discuss the ways to enhance joint cooperation.
The Grand Imam welcomed Mr. Moratinos to Al-Azhar Ash-Sharif, stressing Al-Azhar’s openness to dialogue with all believers in religions, cultures and civilizations, and that the world is now facing a very complex crisis. HE the Grand Imam illustrated that it is a crisis of excluding religious and moral values from people's lives, asserting that this crisis does not only resonate and affect its makers, but it rather extends to all humanity, east and west. So, he added, it is the root of all conflicts and wars witnessed in today’s world.
The Grand Imam also pointed out that the Western civilization is accountable for the largest share of the tragedy of modern humanity, as it sought to exclude religion from people's lives, and focused on satisfying human desires and promoting materialist thought.
The Grand Imam then indicated that today's humanity is suffering food and medicine shortage, a climate change crisis, as well as social crises that work to destroy the family, spread extramarital relationships, and impose anomalous principles on societies that are not part of the West, and which do nor even believe in such anomalies. He pointed out that world countries today are colonizing each other in a fiercer and more dangerous way than that of old colonialism.
For his part, Mr. Moratinos expressed his pleasure at meeting with the Grand Imam once again, and his appreciation for his efforts to promote the values of human fraternity and world peace. He added that he takes pride in the United Nations' relationship with Al-Azhar Ash-Sharif, as it has facilitated his work to achieve rapprochement between cultures and peoples. He also expressed his gratitude for his reelection as a jury member for the Zayed Prize for Human Fraternity, and that the jury are committed to publishing and disseminating the principles of the historic Human Fraternity Document cosigned by His Eminence the Grand Imam and His Holiness Pope Francis, Pope of the Vatican.
Mr. Moratinos affirmed renewed commitment to the givens of the Human Fraternity Document and maintained that the world needs to boost cooperation and intensify efforts to present initiatives that translate the provisions of the document into reality and that propagate them, especially among youth groups. He finally indicated that the United Nations strongly supports such initiatives, and is working on promoting and disseminating them in various countries.
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