Al-Azhar Observatory for Combating Extremism lunches today a new ten-day media campaign entitled "The Imam and the Pope ... The Common Path of Humanity" in 13 languages. The campaign seeks to highlight the most important human values advocated by the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Prof. Ahmed Al-Tayeb and His Holiness Pope Francis, the Head of the Catholic Church, in the historic Document on Human Fraternity that they both signed on February 4, 2019.
The campaign's messages are extracted from the book of “The Pope and the Grand Imam: A Thorny Path … A Testimony to the Birth of the Human Fraternity Document” by Judge Mohammed Abdulsalam, Secretary-General of the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity. The book recounts the important moments that preceded the Document's signing ceremony, which marked a turning point in the history of the relationship between Al-Azhar and the Vatican, and the stages it went through starting from the initiative of the Grand Imam and the preparation the Grand Imam's first visit to the Vatican so that the document would come to light to serve as a compass that guides everyone to peaceful coexistence, acceptance of the other and rejection of racism and discrimination from which societies have gained nothing but tension and crises that further developed to blood shedding and threatening of the peace and security of individuals.
Over the course of 10 days, Al-Azhar Observatory will publish a number of messages expressed by the Grand Imam and the Pope of the Vatican. The messages cover several issues that concern Islamic and global public opinions, most importantly the relationship between religions and terrorism seeing how extremists exploit religious texts and take them out of their contexts to serve their ideologies and agendas; how things like injustice and inequality impact the stability of societies; the role of dialogue in bringing religions and cultures together; and the importance of consolidating peace, especially in light of the deterioration of the humanitarian situation as a result of conflicts and animosities.