Shahid calls for understanding and cooperation between Island and the West

12 September 2007
Report: Soodh

Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah Shahid yesterday marked the anniversary of the September 11 atrocities in the United States by calling for increased understating and cooperation between Islam and the West.

Speaking on the anniversary, Mr. Shahid said urged the Islamic world and the West to search together for the root cause of terrorism and extremism, which the vast majority of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims continue to reject.

The Minister said that we should focus on common ground between Islam and West, and then only we can marginalize fundamentalist elements. He said that we must educate the Islamic world and the West about the true meaning and teaching of Islam, which is a religion of peace, tolerance and compassion, and one that rejects violence and terrorism.

Mr. Shahid noted that a country like Maldives, which has a long and proud history as a tolerant and peace-loving Muslim country, has an important contribution to make to the development of such an understanding.

Recalling the sentiments offered by President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom during a speech in July to the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies, the Foreign Minister emphasized that Muslims everywhere have a duty and responsibility to show the world through their words and deeds that Islam is a great religion that calls for friendship and peace. In particular, all Muslim countries should strive, through democratic and human rights reforms, to establish open and just societies in which the rights of every individual are fully honoured and respected. For its part, the West should support such reforms not through intimidation or force, but through cooperation and dialogue, he said.

It is exactly six years since nearly 3000 people were killed when four planes were hijacked and flown into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

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