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The Address of Highness
Shaikh Hamad Bin Khalifa
Al- Thani
Amir of the State of Qatar
In the Name of God,
The most Compassionate, The Most Merciful.
Your Beatitude Dr. Rowan Williams,
Archbishop of Canterbury
Your Excellencies,
Honourable Audience,
It gives me a pleasure to welcome you
in Doha, and the wish the activities of your seminar success
realizing the aspired objectives.
There is no doubt that convening of
your seminar takes place under extremely difficult
circumstances, namely the war, now going on our region. We
have done our best to avert this war and limit its
complications as much as possible. This grievous situation
adds deep dimensions and noble meanings to this seminar
since it is meeting for the sake of peace and reviving the
sublime values and ideals of both Islam and Christianity,
that believe in the oneness of Almighty God, and call for
fraternity, equality, tolerance, moderation, rejecting
violence, respecting human rights, and maintaining man’s
dignity, life and property.
These sublime principles
have for that the Holy Qur’an an ordered us not ordered us
not to argue with Jews and Christians except with the best
and most gracious ways and to preach the right path with
wisdom and good advise.
Therefore we beseech God to
bestow success on your work so that dialogue between
civilizations overcomes the challenges and obstacles. We are
quite sure that your high status and enlightened thoughts
will address in this seminar, obstructions that hinder the
course of civilized cooperation between the followers of the
two faiths.
Perhaps among the most
evident obstructions are two major problems:
First: the diversion of the
course of the heavenly religions from the essence of their
tenets to serve political purposes.
Second: Passing judgment on
a whole nation through the behavior of minority of
extremists or ignorant people, and using some of their
actions as a base to classify the whole nation, distort its
civilization, threaten its interests and offend its
established principles.
In view, these are the two
original causes of the distorted and false stereotypes and
Islam and Christianity, which we see here and widen the gap
between the followers of two religions, and make discord
replace harmony and clash replace dialogue.
Amidst the historical
transformations we witness these days, we should not forget
to point out that our Arab region is honoured by God the
Almighty with the revelation of the messages of Moses and
Jesus Christ, peace be upon them, and the daybreak of the
Mohammedan Message.
The Arab, Muslims, Jews and
Christians, have lived together in peace, security and
fraternity of faith and striving to excel in beneficence and
common good. But the land of prophets and religions had for
half a century been suffering, and still, from the lack of
Security, peace and stability, as a
result of persistence of the Arab Israeli conflict without a
just settlement due to the absence of international
legality.
Honourable Audience,
We expect much from your
seminar, and hope that your discussions and papers would go
deep into the roots of those obstructions, and that you
would find effective mechanisms to activate dialogue.
I would like to take this
opportunity to propose to you the formation of permanent
body for dialogue between Islam and Christianity, to be
based Qatar, which believes in the significance of such
dialogue between civilizations and in the principles of
affection, tolerance and consultation among societies and
nations, and understanding and promoting rapprochement and
cooperation among Muslim and non- Muslim countries.
In conclusion, I wish you
all success and a pleasant stay in Doha
May peace, mercy and
blessings of God be upon you
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