Al-Azhar condemns Islamic State
December 05, 2014
Cairo-based Al-Azhar University, the world’s leading Muslim institution of learning, sponsored a conference in which 700 participants condemned the activities of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
“We condemn the forced exile of Christians and other religious or ethnic groups,” said the conference’s final statement, which was issued on December 4. “We urge Christians to stay rooted in their homelands and to weather this wave of terrorism we all are suffering.”
Bishop Antonios Aziz Mina, the Coptic Catholic bishop of Giza, told the Fides news agency that the conference was “epochal.”
“This is the first time that such an influential Islamic institution openly declares that theories used by terrorists and extremists to justify with the Qur’an violent activity are a perversion of genuine Islam,” he said. “Until now Islamic institutions and academies have almost always been timid in condemning such tendencies.”
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Further information:
- Al-Azhar urges Christians not to flee Mideast radicals (AFP)
- For Copt Catholic Bishop Antonios Mina the anti-Islamist terrorism Conference at al-Azhar was “epochal” (Fides)
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