\nAMMAN: In an unprecedented move, Sheikh Mohammed Al-Issa, secretary-general of the Muslim World League (MWL), has called on faith leaders to travel to Jerusalem by launching a \u201cpeace caravan\u201d made up of religious messengers who are independent of any political affiliation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nThe call was made at the opening of the second Conference on Cultural Rapprochement between the US and the Muslim World in New York on Oct. 4.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThis convoy should represent the three religions to visit all the holy places in Jerusalem. The crisis cannot be tackled except by great influential men powered with logical wisdom and justice,\u201d Al-Issa said to some 400 US, Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders and thinkers.<\/p>\n
\nThe peace initiative by the head of the Makkah-based MWL followed calls for peace by Jewish and Christian American religious leaders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nCharles Small, president of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, said the greatest victim of antisemitism in America today are Muslims. Quoting the Jewish writer and Holocaust survival the late Elie Wiesel, Small said that \u201cwhile antisemitism begins with Jews it doesn\u2019t end with Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nShawki Allam, the grand mufti of Egypt, focused on the need for a positive intervention, saying that he hopes to make a \u201cpositive contribution in the effort to place the foundation of a holistic approach to dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThe president of the Emirates Fatwa Council, Abdallah bin Bayyah, spoke about religion\u2019s approach to tolerating the other. \u201cWe want all religions, and their adherents, to move from simple acknowledgment of the other to the Qur\u2019anic calling of coming to know one another.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nIt is noteworthy that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has regularly called on Muslims and Arabs who can visit Jerusalem to do so saying that visiting a prisoner is not legitimizing the jailers, a reference to the suggestion that such a visit represents normalization with Israel.<\/p>\n
\nAl-Issa tackled the label of extremism in his closing speech on the conference\u2019s first day. \u201cGreat religions are not extreme by nature; and at the same time, there is no religion that is free of extremists who believe that they solely are privileged with the absolute truth.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Muslim World League head urges faith leaders to travel to Jerusalem seeking peace AMMAN: In an unprecedented move, Sheikh Mohammed Al-Issa, secretary-general of the Muslim World League (MWL), has called on faith leaders to travel to Jerusalem by launching a \u201cpeace caravan\u201d made up of religious messengers who are independent of any political affiliation.\u00a0 The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":17593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}