The UN Responsible Leader Summit, held at the United Nations Headquarters, which concluded yesterday with the attendance of many senior religious leaders, a number of global thought leaders, and UN staff members, called for confronting the discourse of hate speech around the world and resolving the outstanding issues by virtue of the principle of just and comprehensive peace. It is noted that the summit praised Saudi Arabia's strenuous efforts towards preserving the worlds' tranquility and peace, stressing the importance of the Saudi central role as the leader of the Islamic world.
Defining responsible leadership, especially the religiousone
The Secretary-General of the Muslim World League (MWL), Chairman of the International Organization for Muslim Scholars (IOMS), Dr. Mohammad Al-Issa, said that today's world faces many challenges. Responsible leadership means not to use utilitarian methods at the expense of common human values, as well as openness to others, facing challenges with confidence and optimism, always finding solutions at the least costs and risks. It also means to be effective towards programs and initiatives that continually measure its performance, and learn that what it delivers to the present, is equally important to what it does to the future, may in some cases be even more important.
He added saying: "It is important here to talk about the religiousleadership, which bears a great responsibility for the most important thingthat the world today requires towards achieving tranquility and peace, which isaddressing the discourse of hate speech, all theories of religious or ethnicextremism that lead to violence or terrorism, especially among the youth,through the centers of spiritual influence the religious leaders have."
The difference between religion and religiousness
He underlined that the extremist thought and terrorism related to the religious side did not have a military force, nor a political entity, but a religiousness adopted extremist ideology, and here we differentiate clearly between religion and religiousness. There is no religion that is extremist in its origin, but also no religion is free from the existence of extremists.
Al-Issa noted that paying respect for the existed religions and theirfollowers is an important element in their peace and coexistence. Adding thatthe religious, sectarian, and cultural blocs, by their negative isolation andtrying to impose their ideas and culture as well as rejecting the right ofothers to exist, are excluded within the circle of hatred, sectarianism, andantagonism. And that such negative ideas created extremism of all kinds,including the extremist right wing in some countries, pointing out that "everycase of religious, intellectual, or political extremism represents a threat tothe peace of our world, whatever the degree of that threat. The local ortrans-border extremism carries in its side an evil that grows over time,through its impact on the unconscious emotions or through negative encounter ofthe counter-extremism."
