"WE ARE UNITED BY FAITH IN GOD"

A global inter-confessional conference has been held in Madrid. About 100 leaders of the world's largest religions gathered at the El-Pardo palace of the Austrian court, to discuss the opportunities for creating a harmonious world order. The forum was organized by the World Muslim League and patronized directly by the King of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah ben Abdel Aziz, and the Spanish monarch, Juan Carlos II.

 "Call from noble Mecca"

Back in March of this year, the Saudi king shared his idea of "addressing the representatives of all monotheistic religions with the suggestion to get together" because "all adherents of these religions worship one God". Abdullah explained the need for such a meeting in the following way: "Mankind is currently in a state of crisis. This crisis has already crossed all boundaries of reason, morality and humanity". After pointing to the "increasing dissemination of godlessness in the world" and, as a consequence, the "loss of belief in the future of mankind", he stressed that such a crisis was unacceptable "for representatives of all revealed religions - for those believing in the Koran, the Torah and the Gospel". Hence, all believers must "jointly develop measures capable of saving mankind, which is currently moving towards non-existence". 

Then, in early June, an international Islamic conference was held in Mecca on the initiative of the Saudi leader. Religious leaders from Muslim countries (almost 500 people) made the historic decision that "dialogue with representatives of the Abrahamic religions is intended to benefit mankind, preserve human dignity and protect morality and justice". The conference adopted a "call from noble Mecca" to "reach a mutual understanding between all those believing in one God, our Creator" for "a joint opposition to oppression, despotism and racial domination", the "soonest end to wars, conflicts and other global problems", allowing future generations "the opportunity to live in an environmentally safe world" where "reasonable parameters of industrial and technical progress" are created. The Mecca conference came out for the "protection of moral and spiritual values which are currently being washed away under the pretext of the freedom of the individual" and sent out a message calling for opposition to the "exploitation of poor nations under the pretext of liberation and human rights". The priority list for future dialogue contained issues relating to the protection of the family on the basis of "universally accepted norms of marriage and birth" and rejection of the desire of certain world media "to undermine the norms of morality and sow strife".

There is another important aspect. The "call from noble Mecca" confirmed the "absolute rejection" by the Muslims of the "theory of a fight between civilizations" and "the end of history", and stressed the need to expose the assertions that Islam is hostile to modern civilization. The Madrid inter-confessional forum, which took up the baton from the Mecca conference, demonstrated the "openness of Muslims to dialogue with all strands of modern thought contributing to the evolution of the world".

Madrid conclusions

The choice of the Spanish capital as the venue of the first global inter-confessional forum was made by the Saudi and Spanish kings during the May visit by Juan Carlos to Riyadh. The two parties took into consideration the fact that Spain, "with its historically lengthy Muslim and Jewish heritage and its experience of Christian-Muslim-Jewish dialogue and co-existence, represents a crossroads of civilizations". Further, in 1999 the Spanish capital hosted the first meetings of the International peace conference on the Middle East, which went down in history as the "Madrid peace process".

In his opening remarks Kind Abdullah cited a verse from the Koran: "Oh people! We created you as men and women and made you people and tribes so that you could understand each other". He went on to say: "I am bringing a message from Muslims which was given to me by theologians and thinkers gathered in the holy city of Mecca. This message says that Islam is a religion of temperance, tranquility and tolerance." He communicated the idea of respect for other faiths which is laid down in the Koran and clearly expressed by Prophet Muhammad. "We have gathered here to confirm that religions inspired by God must bring happiness, not disputes and confrontation. To succeed, we must concentrate on what we share - faith in God," King Abdullah said.

The need to bring people of different faiths closer together was also stressed by the king of Spain: "Mutual respect should create a dialogue which will make the process of familiarization easier, help us find common values and develop cooperation and mutual understanding." Juan Carlos said in fully supporting Abdullah, adding that a dialogue between religions is an important means of solving such global problems as famine, epidemics, wars and terrorism. 

The general secretary of the World Muslim League, Abdullah at-Turki, the former British prime minister, Toni Blair, and the founder of the League for the Rights of Afro-Americans, Jesse Jackson, called, in their remarks, for the development of projects of specific inter-religious cooperation.

The importance of the inter-religious dialogue was also highlighted in Madrid by a representative of the Pope of Rome, the president of the Papal Council on Inter-religious Dialogue, Cardinal Jean-Luis Toran. "The most important thing is the particularity of the event being held on the initiative of the king of Saudi Arabia, not only as head of a state, but also of the most sacrosanct places of Islam. This will certainly contribute a universal measure to his initiative." One of the influential catholic bishops, on behalf of his church, gave a positive assessment of the initiative of the Saudi king, who had decided to "gather" representatives of three religions and organize a "Jewish-Islamic-Christian dialogue", aiming "to propose ethical values shared by all believers of the world, especially in educating the youth and helping mankind return to God".

"It is wonderful and necessary that Christians, Jews and Muslims in a secularized world witness the extraordinary measure of human personality and its relationships with God. Besides, we can cooperate in everything that concerns the nature of life and the moral education of youngsters. We can share a dialogue of charity: help the poor and the destitute, give a helping hand to the victims of natural calamities," said Cardinal Toran.

Results of the dialogue 

Thus the Madrid forum has shown that the people believing in one God are interested in interacting with each other, not only to develop acceptable forms of existence between peoples and civilizations, but also to overcome the spread of godlessness in the modern world. One of the key messages the conference sent to the world community is that representatives of different confessions are ready to join their efforts to overcome the total commercialization which is characteristic of post-industrial society and to oppose the assertion of an understanding of human freedom which allows freedom from sin and, therefore, is no freedom at all because it leads man to death.

It is also important that, for the first time, authoritative representatives of different religions, primarily Islam, Judaism and Christianity, had the opportunity to speak to each other, not under the auspices of a global political organization, but on the initiative of the head of the state where the most sacred shrines of Islam are located. From this standpoint, the dialogue between civilizations held with the active participation of Kind Abdullah will dispel the wrongly-held impression of Islam, mainly existing in the West, as an "aggressive" and "irreconcilable" religion. The Madrid forum confirmed that terrorism, as well as other forms of extremism, not to mention human malice in general, has nothing to do with a religion but is the consequence of earthliness, ignorance and moral degradation. 

An indicative moment in the forum was the handshake between the Saudi king and the Israeli rabbi. Abdullah commented on this gesture in the following way: "We must fight extremism and bigotry. Our dialogue must be based on faith. It must serve peace and fraternity in the face of racism."

The head of the department for inter-religious relations of the US Jewish committee, David Rosen, said the event organized by the Saudi king carried "historic importance".

The recommendations of the Madrid forum for further development of inter-religious dialogue will be tabled at the next UN General Assembly, due in September 2008.