Al-Azhar's Imam calls on Muslims in the Middle East to 'embrace' Christians

The Grand Imam of Egypt’s Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tayeb [Arbeitsbesuch Ägypten/Wikipedia]

Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Egypt’s Al-Azhar mosque and university, called on Muslims in the Middle East to “embrace” local Christian communities, says Reuters.

He addressed Muslims saying: “Continue to embrace your brothers the Christian citizens everywhere, for they are our partners in our nation,” he said during a televised speech from a ceremony in the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi, also attended by Pope Francis.

READ: Egypt’s Sisi opens mega-mosque and Middle East’s largest cathedral in New Capital

Then he addressed Christians saying:

You are part of this nation. You are citizens, you are not a minority… You are citizens with full rights and responsibilities.

Sheikh Tayeb also called on Muslims in the west to integrate into their host nations and respect local laws.

Egypt has relied on Azhar’s clerics in its battle against militant Islam. Al-Azhar hosted Pope Francis in 2017 to improve relations between Catholics and Muslims.

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.