Jordan to Host Iraqi Islamic Reconciliation Summit
April 22, 2006

Amman, Jordan, April 5, 2006  - Under the patronage of His Majesty King Abdullah II, a large number of senior Iraqi religious and tribal leaders – both Sunnis and Shi’is, Arabs and Kurds – will gather in Amman on April 22, 2006 for The Iraqi Islamic Reconciliation Summit. The meeting, organized in cooperation between Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought and the Arab League, will provide a forum for Iraqi leaders to take a crucial step towards stemming the violence in Iraq.

During the summit, King Abdullah will join the delegates in a call for an end to bloodshed and religious tension in Iraq. The summit is expected to culminate in a signed declaration stating that fighting between Shi’is and Sunnis has no legitimate religious basis.

The Iraqi Islamic Reconciliation Summit is a necessary initiative to help bring the violence in Iraq to an end, establish a stable and fully representative Iraqi government and permit a peaceful and orderly withdrawal of coalition troops. Peace in Iraq cannot be achieved without a political solution, and a political solution cannot, in turn, be achieved without a religious solution because fighting in Iraq has generally occurred along religious sectarian lines, especially among Iraq’s Arab Muslim communities. The Iraqi Reconciliation Summit thus seeks to alleviate religious tensions by asserting fundamental principles that are shared by all Muslims. As such, it could constitute a critical step in diffusing civil tension and helping to clear the way for a final and permanent political solution in Iraq.

The conference also will be attended by a number of major religious figures from the Islamic world including the top religious figures from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Syria, the Gulf and Iran. Egypt’s Shaykh al-Azhar Mohammad Sayyed Tantawi and Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa are expected to join the King in denouncing extremist misinterpretations of Islam that feed the sectarian violence in Iraq. Together they will reaffirm the underlying values and principles shared by all branches of Islam.

The Iraqi Islamic Reconciliation Summit builds upon The International Islamic Conference on “True Islam and its Role in Modern Society” hosted by King Abdullah in July 2005. In the final conference declaration, over 180 scholars representing 45 countries signed the final declaration condemning the practice known as takfir (calling others “apostates”) that is used by extremists to justify violence. They were supported by fatwas from 20 of the world’s most senior Islamic scholars, including the Shaykh Al-Azhar, Grand Ayatollah Sistani, the Muftis of Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Oman and Sheikh Yusif Al-Qardawi. The declaration also recognized the legitimacy of all eight of the traditional schools of Islamic religious law (madhhabs): the Sunni, Shi’i and Ibadi branches of Islam, as well as traditional Asharite theology, Islamic mysticism (Sufism) and moderate Salafi thought. The declaration also identified their common principles and beliefs and defined the necessary qualifications and conditions for issuing fatwas, thereby exposing the illegitimacy of the so-called fatwas justifying terrorism as being outside of orthodox Islamic religious law and in clear violation of Islam’s core principles. This historical Islamic consensus was adopted by the entire Islamic world at the Organization of the Islamic Conference summit at Mecca in December 2005. This agreement on religious principles will form the doctrinal basis for the Iraqi Islamic Reconciliation Summit’s final declaration.

The convening of the summit reflects King Abdullah’s efforts to promote moderation and harmony among Muslims. The King is uniquely poised to facilitate this summit because as a forty-third generation direct descendent of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and thus a member of the Aal al-Bayt (the Household of the Prophet pbuh), he enjoys unique status amongst all Muslims. Also, he is the scion of the oldest ruling dynasty in the Islamic world. Moroever, Jordan enjoys unique social, tribal, economic and historical ties with Iraq, and, for the last 30 years – and especially since the beginning of the current fighting in Iraq – Jordan has given shelter and safe passage to millions of Iraqis. There are today over half million Iraqis living in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

For further information contact Press Attaché Merissa Khurma at 202-265-1606.

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