MAKKAH, 29 May 2008 — Secretary-General of the Muslim World League (MWL) Abdullah Al-Turki yesterday reiterated the importance of holding interfaith dialogues as an effective means of removing the misconceptions about Islam.

A conference on the significance of dialogue between different religions is scheduled to begin on June 4 in Makkah. More than 500 Islamic scholars from around the world will attend the conference, which is organized by the MWL.

One session of the three-day event will be set apart for the methodology of dialogues with the religions and cultures of South Asia and the Far East.

“It is significant because the followers of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Shintoism living in India, Sri Lanka, China, Japan and the Korean Peninsula constitute more than one-third of the world population. Islam is keen on holding dialogues with all the communities of the world,” Al-Turki said.

He commended moves initiated by the Kingdom in holding dialogues with Asian cultures in conferences held in Riyadh and the Sri Lankan capital Colombo.

The dialogues give an opportunity to introduce the values of Islamic culture and remove misunderstandings about Islam and pave the way for peaceful coexistence between Muslims and other communities, he said.

Al-Turki added that Muslims had maintained excellent relations with various communities in Asia over the centuries.

“History shows that Muslim kings had ruled over several countries in South Asia and the Far East and they never curtailed religious freedom of their subjects,” Al-Turki pointed out.

Several Hindu, Buddhist and other religious leaders have expressed their desire to cooperate with the MWL and to learn about the Muslim principles of tolerance and coexistence, he said.

Shoura Council President Dr. Saleh Bin-Humaid will chair the conference’s first session, which will see the presentation of a number of research papers on the concept of dialogue and its objectives in the Qur’an and Sunnah, and experiences of cultural dialogue throughout history.

The participants will include Mustafa Ceric, mufti of Bosnia; Abdullah Omar Naseef, secretary-general of the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief; Muhammad Al-Sammak, secretary-general of the Islamic Spiritual Summit in Lebanon; Badr Al-Qassimi, deputy chairman of the Indian Fiqh Council; Fouzi Al-Zafaf, former deputy director of Al-Azhar; and Mahmoud Ghazi of the College of Islamic Studies in Qatar.