In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

     Welcome, you all, our dear guests who kindly heeded our invitation, coming from the farthest lands of the East and the West. We thank you all and welcome you to Egypt—your second home, a friendly country which we believe to occupy a special place in your hearts. Al-Azhar is indeed delighted to receive you all and it looks forward to benefitting from your cooperation and from your learned endeavors at this very critical moment in the history of our nation and for its future.

     This conference does not only bring together many distinguished personages from the Arab and Muslim East, but it also brings together the Sunni and Shiite Muslims, the Christians from different denominations, and other creeds and doctrines that grew and developed in the East and benefited from its richness and the goodness. It is also a conference that comes at a most critical and a most troubled of times, when our countries and our nations are besieged by many dangers, externally and internally. Wherever you turn your eyes on the map of the Middle East, you will be horrified by the tragic spectacle. One is deeply confused and unable to find a single rational explanation to justify the deliberate mass destruction befalling lives, habitat, and property alike. This destruction can disintegrate the nation and its civilization, and cause its history to vanish.

     Day and night, I keep asking myself and my visitors about what could be the original cause for this Arab crisis. This is a state of blind strife, mixed as it was with the stench of blood and death, with bombings and explosions. There are the sights of beheadings, dislocation of millions and destruction of the vestiges of civilized existence and of whole countries. All of this is mingled with a savagery that was perhaps never known to us before, and indeed may not be expected hereafter. These are the acts of such factions, a new development in our civilization and our culture, particularly in the way they contravene all the interdictions that have long been established by religions, ethics and common human decencies. That is a mark to distinguish a rational human being from a beast of prey.

     A third grievous calamity, my good Brothers, is that these barbaric and heinous crimes are being committed by donning the mantle of this true religion, giving the dark dens, wherein such crimes are being plotted. Using the name of "Islamic State" or "Islamic Caliphate" or some such misnomer or spurious title, is all an attempt to send abroad an image of a disfigured Islam. This is meant to brand this religion as one that brings slaughter, beheadings and dislocation to all who dare differ from it. This hateful and calumnious image of our true religion has long been conjured, dreamed of and waited for by the enemies of Islam. Indeed, they have long been murmuring incantations around it, construing artful falsehood, spreading calumnies and lies. It is thus most likely that these very enemies will now confront us with this disfigured image to further calumniate us from all the satellite screens so as to finally achieve their goal and send warning alarms to all the nations of the world about this bloodthirsty and barbaric religion.

     When one seeks the reasons behind the appearance of such armed groups, taking note of their quick expansion across Arab and Islamic countries, one is faced with various explanations. These range from religious to economic, cultural to political, in addition to some other possible explanations that this conference shall have ample time to consider. I wish here to draw your attention to yet another explanation that merits our close examination. This is the one that sees our present sufferings as nothing other than the result of a conspiracy wrought by the enemies of the Arab and Islamic East, for the benefit of the State of Israel, so that it can remain as the most powerful and the most affluent in the region. On our part, we do not consider such an explanation to be a far-fetched one. Indeed, the State of Iraq was invaded under false pretenses in 2003. Lies were deliberately foisted on us to that end, only to be revealed later as unfounded by the international media. This fact is also acknowledged by the super powers themselves. The first patch woven of the plot by the invaders was disbanding the Iraqi army, which was one of the most powerful Arab armies. Not only were the officers and the soldiers disbanded, but their weapons were left to be vandalized by the warring factions and militias. This happened despite the invaders' full awareness of the deep divisions that existed in terms of sect, creed and loyalty. So, what was the final outcome after eleven years from the invasion of Iraq? Iraq has fallen into a maelstrom of endless fighting, swimming in seas of blood with no shore in sight to this day. The same thing may also be said of Syria, Yemen and Libya. The conspiracy plays at the same fault lines of doctrine, sect and ethnicity, supplying the factions with arms to further spread the fires, letting death reap thousands of the youthful lives of the nation. In all of these afflicted countries, only Allah knows when the roaring machinery of war will finally come to a halt or when these countries will be guided by their own light, instead of succumbing to outside pressures from both regional and international interventionists.

     We are quite certain that those who perpetrated such plots are now reaping great benefits from the inter-fighting of Muslims. Such fighting will keep the Arabs and the Muslims in a state of depletion and despair that knows no respite. They can now never muster any strength, achieve any development or make any progress. It is a war by proxy in which the real fomenters of fighting will lose nothing of value, whether in lives or in resources. Moreover, the inter-Arab fighting opens big markets for the arms industry and for the dealers of war, death and destruction. It is enough proof, over the years, that the Syrian stage has now become an open field of war, where the Western and Eastern arms industry may vie and compete.

     How much I wish, and wishing is the resort of the helpless, that the arms industry will find some remote desert or wasteland to try its weaponry and to test its strength away from the chests of the Arabs, their habitats and their built environments.

Gentlemen,

     The conspiracy theory is not all there is, for there is yet another deeper reason, one that goes back to our own Arab and Muslim history, and which is now almost a constant element of our internal dealings. This is the propensity for vicarious splintering, bickering, and being contrary. I have no wish to digress here to deal with this scourge, neither briefly nor at length. The Qur᾿ān has already warned us of its dire consequences in the words of Allah, “Obey Allah and His Messenger and do not quarrel among yourselves lest you lose heart and your momentum disappear. Be steadfast, for Allah is with the steadfast.” (Qur᾿ān, 8:46)

     However, I just wish to emphasize that our nation has its potentials for unity when compared to other nations. It shares language, ethnicity, religion, history and geography. It is represented by the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, established some half a century ago. Yet, it still lacks union. For instance, it is not impossible for it to be like the European Union. We need to have sincere intention and a long-term vision to achieve this aim, setting all internecine conflicts aside. The Arabs are undoubtedly highly qualified and eminently capable of achieving such a union if only they so wished. In this context, Al-Azhar Al-Sharif highly esteems the Custodian of Two Holy Mosques, for his tireless efforts to unite the Arabs before the challenges and the dangers that now face the nation. Against such dangers, there could be no shield, unless we Arabs forget our differences. We need to extinguish the raging fires within and unite to confront this devouring monster. The international alliance has to muster all its energies and resources, both moral and material, to defeat terrorism, in all its forms and its varieties. This can be achieved by confronting those states that stand behind it and support it with arms and financial resources. In so doing, the alliance will actually be helping its own nations before defending the Arab nations.

     We must not avert our eyes from taking responsibility for the extremist ideas that have seeped into the minds of some youths, driving them to declare Muslims disbelievers. They also embrace harsh or violent interpretations of the sacred texts, such as we find in Al-Qaida and the armed movements that derive from it, who work day and night to attack our homelands and to destabilize our societies. This trend has lately manifested itself in the ISIS, an organization that calls for an Islamic caliphate. Before that and after it, there were also sectarian killer militias who have possessed a great power and a vast propaganda machine. All of these together have brought in their wake the worst of consequences upon Islam and the Muslims, the world over.

     The ISIS, however, is not the only armed organization on the ground. There are also the sectarian militias who keep slaughtering people and forcibly dislocating them in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. There are also the sectarian groups that are trying to push their countries into a state of vassalage to certain regional powers in the name of democracy and human rights, like we find in Bahrain, for example. All of these have their own sheikhs, who issue fatwas permitting such crimes and encouraging people to commit them. In fact, it is difficult to speak further about such a grievous tragedy. We think only of the unity of Muslims, which is one of the noblest of goals for Al-Azhar. It is one that goes back to its inception as an institution, and ever since its call began to spread in the horizons, for more than a thousand years now.

     What unites all of these groups is a common denominator that determines all their crimes and to which they all cling. This is to pronounce all Muslims as disbelievers or to declare Muslims disbeliever, for some sin or other, thus holding it as lawful to spill their blood. This brings to the mind the crimes committed by some of the sects of old that vanished in the mist of history who would kill Muslims after pronouncing them as disbelievers on the basis of an erroneous and deviant understanding of the Qur᾿ān and the Sunnah. The new extremists express this very belief after perverting the proper meaning of the concepts of belief and disbelief, even though disbelief has been defined by the Prophet himself (pbuh) in the tradition of Gabriel (pbuh). Muslims have always subscribed to this definition which stipulates that no Muslim may be pronounced a disbeliever merely on account of having committed a sin, even if this sin may be a grave one (kabīrah), unless the culprit in question actually believes his sin to be lawful. For disbelief is a denial in the heart or an absence of belief in Allah, His Angels, His Prophets, His Revelations, the Last Day and Destiny, whether it is to one's liking or not; whoever believes in all of that may not be pronounced a disbeliever.

     The concept of jihad too has been perverted by these armed groups of extremists and sectarians. They would kill anyone they wish by pretending they were acting for jihad, while claiming that whoever is killed from their own ranks is in Paradise. This is indeed a most repugnant understanding of the Islamic Sharia.

     First: Jihad is legitimate in Islam only when it is waged in self-defense, in the defense of one's religion or one's country. We have learnt from our scholars at Al-Azhar Al-Sharif that the legitimate cause for fighting is aggression, not disbelief.

     Second: the declaration of jihad and engaging in it may not be undertaken by anyone except the ruler. Thus, it may not be undertaken by individuals or groups who claim power, whatever the justification may be. Otherwise, the outcome of such behavior will be to plunge the whole society into chaos (fitnah), bloodshed, rape and pillage, the case which we suffer nowadays due to this mistaken understanding of Sharia rulings.

     Islam prohibits aggression on any human being, whatever his religion or belief may be: "Because of that We ordained for the Children of Israel that if anyone kills a person not in retaliation of murder, or spreading mischief in the land, it would be as if he killed all of the humankind." (Qur᾿ān, 5:32) Indeed, how could that be when Islam has opened up even to the followers of other religions to the extent of allowing mixed marriages, in which case two different religions may live together under the same roof? By this, Islam does not only accept coexistence, but it also allows the mixing of families.

     Whatever misunderstanding among certain Muslims on the question of the caliphate, or the imamate may be, it is an established principle among the scholars of the fundamentals of religion that the question of the political system belongs to the legal issues, not the universal doctrines of religion. It is thus subject to differing opinions, which is a well-established principle known by heart even by the youngest of students, at the Faculty of Religious Fundamentals at Al-Azhar. In the book entitled, Sharḩ Al-Mawāqif, (Explaining the Stations) which is one of the pivotal works of the Ash‛arite theology stipulated by the curriculum of Al-Azhar, the author comments about about the political system, stating, "To us, it is not  one of the fundamentals of religion, but one of the secondary issues".

     In Sharḩ Al-Mawāqif, which is part of the curriculum of the Faculty of Theology, the prominent Sunni theologian Sa‛d Al-Taftazāniy says, "There is no dispute among theologians that the question of the imamate (political leadership) is more befitting legal issues than universal doctrines. This principle is indeed a constantly stated one in the theological works of Sunni Islam. How it is then that such a question has become a great cause for strife and for so much bloodshed and destruction, disfiguring the very image of this true religion?

     One needs to digress for too long if one tries to enumerate all the Sharia concepts and rulings that were disfigured, infringed upon and taken out of context by the unwholesome disposition of these groups in order for them to justify the killing of people. I shall leave to this conference the task of setting these misconceptions aright by reference to both our transmitted and intellectual traditions. Afterwards, such contributions may be published for the whole world to see as part of the final statement of the conference, in order to exonerate the truth as well as to clear up one's conscience.

Good Brothers and Friends:

     We sense the great need to direct the efforts of our youth to seek scientific, technological and cultural progress so that we may hope to catch up one day with the other nations of the world, which are ahead of us now in the exercise of leadership and influence over the destiny of humanity, directing its march as well as determining its ends. Now, this march stands in great need for guidance by the light of the Revelations of Heaven and for the discipline from religious ethics if we are to alleviate the suffering brought on people by international politics which operate in the absence of the values bequeathed to us by the Prophets and the Messengers of Heaven who were sent to humanity only to guide them and bring happiness to them in this world and the next.

Dear Brothers

     Al-Azhar Al-Sharif has been devoting a continuous effort towards the formulation of a conscious and well-guided religious discourse of which the structure must be well-founded on the Noble Qur᾿ān and on the Holy Traditions of the Prophet's Sunnah, as well as on the well-received opinions of the scholars over the centuries.

     From that vantage point, I appeal to all the Muslims, asking them to have the greatest confidence in Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, both as mosque and university, for it is your honest instructor in the affairs of religion, whether those that pertain to the creed or to the right path of Sharia, with purity and wholesomeness, as it was willed by Allah and conveyed by His Messenger (pbuh), far removed from the perversions of extremists, the wiles of deceivers and the misinterpretations of the ignorant.

     Finally, as we confront terrorism, extremism and unwarranted interpretations of our religion, such challenges that keep us daily occupied must not take us far away from the primary issue of all the Arabs and Muslims, which is the Farthest Mosque (Al-Masjid Al-Aqṣā), the first orientation of prayer and the third most holy mosque. There will be no peace for our world without resolving the question of Palestine, radically and justly.

     Al-Azhar Al-Sharif is now resolved to devote its 15th conference to the question of Palestine. May Allah almighty grant us with all success in doing whatever is good for all humanity!