Religious leaders to promote peaceful coexistence in Cairo conference

Cairo - The international event comes within the framework of the Grand Imam's efforts to promote a culture of peace and coexistence

While the entire world is mostly facing the big issue of peaceful coexistence, the Al-Azhar International Peace Conference, to kick off on Wednesday, is to shed light on the barriers, perils and challenges to global peace in the modern world.
The leading function, to continue for two days, is to tackle three other issues, spanning the misinterpretation of religious texts and its impact on global peace, poverty and sickness; between deprivation and exploitation; and the culture of peace in religion between reality and expectations.
The congress is to see the presence of more than 300 Muslim, Christian and political scholars and leaders from around the world. Pope Francis II of Vatican is expected to attend this conference and deliver a speech at the closing of this conference after his scheduled official visit to Dr. Al Tayyeb, Grand Imam of Al Azhar, the global seat of Sunni Muslim learning, and chairman of the Muslim Council of Elders.
This two-day-conference will send a message to the whole world that all religious figures and representatives of religions, gathered in Al-Azhar, are on common terms with regard to the call for a global peace among all religious leaders and the whole human community.
A similar message was shared in February when the council, with Al Azhar, gathered Muslim scholars and Christian leaders from 50 countries for a two-day conference in Cairo.
They will also affirm, based on their mutual trust, their call to followers of the different faiths to take them as an example; to work hand-in-hand towards denouncing all sorts of fanaticism and hatred and to instill a culture of love, compassion, and peace among mankind.
This international event comes within the framework of the Grand Imam's efforts to promote a culture of peace and coexistence, and achieving a global peace for humanity. 
Pope Francis's visit to Egypt, the first by a modern-day Roman Catholic leader since Pope John Paul II in 2000, comes after recent attacks on two Coptic churches in Tanta and Alexandria that killed at least 47 on Palm Sunday.
The pope will be travelling under the banner "Pope of Peace in Egypt of Peace" on his visit on Friday and Saturday. He will celebrate mass for Catholics in Cairo, and meet Catholic and Orthodox bishops and priests.
The pope, in his second trip to the Middle East, will meet the Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El Sisi and Pope Tawadros II, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.
The Muslim Council of Elders said that the Cairo event would be a call to followers of different faiths to trust each other, and work as one to denounce extremism and promote peace.
ahmedshaaban@khaleejtimes.com

• MENA