The president of Egypt’s Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs is noting that a decision to freeze dialogue with the Holy See from Sunni Islam’s highest authority may have been hasty.
In 1998, Ali Al-Samman was the architect of the joint committee that brings together the Cairo-based Permanent Committee of Al-Azhar for Dialogue among the Monotheistic Religions and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.
In Part 1 of a two-part interview with ZENIT, Al-Samman offered his perspective on the Jan. 20 announcement of a dialogue-freeze from the Cairo-based Islamic Research Council of the University of Al-Azhar, which came in protest of Benedict XVI’s statements on religious freedom following a Jan. 1 attack on a Coptic church in Alexandria.
Out of Egypt is a new [url=http://www.persecution.org/outofegypt/]blog[/url] which documents the religious persecution of Christians in Egypt.
To summarize: “Islam is a religion of peace, and if you don’t agree, we’ll chop off your head.”
This man has implied that the violence on MidEast Christians years after the fact, are the pope’s fault. And what did the pope say? That Islam is violent.