JEDDAH: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, who left yesterday for Morocco on a private visit, will open the international interfaith conference in the Spanish capital Madrid on July 16, a Royal Court announcement said.
Crown Prince Sultan has been designated to manage state affairs until the king returns, the Royal Court said.
King Abdullah first announced his plan to hold an interfaith conference when he met delegates attending a cultural dialogue between Japan and the Muslim world in Riyadh last March. He said such a dialogue was essential to promote world peace.
Abdullah presented the idea when he held talks with Pope Benedict XVI during their historic meeting at the Vatican last November. “My meeting with the Pope was unforgettable. It was a meeting of one human being with another,” the king said.
Abdullah Al-Turki, secretary-general of the Muslim World League, the main organizer of the Madrid conference, said leading personalities representing the various monotheistic religions would participate in the three-day conference.
He said the conference would discuss topics such as community amity, international cooperation, human rights and peaceful coexistence. The religious and cultural roots of dialogue, the moral values of contemporary man, and the role of religion in combating crime, drugs and corruption are other topics for discussion.
Participants representing Islam will include Saleh Al-Hossain, head of the Presidency of the Two Holy Mosques Affairs, Saleh Bin-Humaid, chairman of the Shoura Council, Abdullah Omar Naseef, secretary-general of the World Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief, Yousuf Al-Qaradawi of Qatar University, and Salman Al-Oadah, supervisor of Islamtoday.com website.
Those invited from other faiths include: Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Papal Council for Inter-Religious dialogue, Rowan Williams, head of the Church of England, Robert Edgar, secretary-general of the National Council of Churches in the US, Rabbi David Weiss of Neturei Karta, Bawa Jain, secretary-general of the UN Millennium World Peace Summit, Rabbi Michael Paley of American Jewish Archives, Karen Armstrong, a Jewish researcher, Alan Race, director of International Interfaith Center at Oxford and American thinker Francis Fukuyama.
