The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has once again condemned attempts to burn the Holy Qur’an, stressing the need to consolidate the values of dialogue, tolerance, and respect, and to reject everything that spreads hatred and extremism.
This came in an official statement issued by the Saudi Council of Ministers on Tuesday evening, headed by the Custodian of the two Holly Mosques Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz, in the city of Jeddah.
Rejecting hatred
Last Monday, the Saudi Foreign Ministry issued a statement stressing “the necessity of consolidating the values of dialogue, tolerance and respect and rejecting everything that would spread hatred, extremism and exclusion” in response to what an extremist group in Denmark did last Friday by burning the Holy Quran in front of the Turkish embassy in Copenhagen.
Riyadh called earlier on “all European governments in which these extremist violations occurred to urgently address all these practices that contribute to fueling hatred and conflict between followers of religions.”
Al-Azhar condemnation
The Al-Azhar Observatory said in a report that the whole world followed the criminal event committed by a group supporting the right-wing extremist “Rasmus Paludan”, who leads an anti-immigration party in Denmark, by burning the Qur’an in the Swedish capital Stockholm, specifically in front of the Turkish embassy, and filming and broadcasting this matter through the means of communication. social.
This extremist event sparked wide global reactions, condemning this event that ignited the anger of hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world.
What is remarkable here is that this event was not the first of its kind, as incidents of burning the Holy Qur’an have been repeated several times over the past years.
In the short term, in Sweden itself, the Al-Azhar Observatory monitored a piece of news in the same context, with the title: “After an attack against Muslims, a mosque in Sweden condemns the desecration of the Qur’an.”
Where the Qur’an was hung with an iron chain in a humiliating manner near the door of the mosque, Rasmus even carries out “burning of the Qur’an” from time to time in Sweden and Denmark.
Clear hostile behavior
Thus, the issue of burning the Qur’an is an intentional matter that reveals to us a clear hostile desire and an explicit intention to provoke Muslims.
This is because this matter cannot be seen as an acceptable objection to a specific position taken by a person or several Muslims, but rather it is an intention to attack all Muslims in the world.
This is confirmed by the fact that Terry Jones – for example – once mentioned in a press conference that he had never read the Qur’an, and therefore it is an intentionally hostile stance against Muslims, more like a childish plot, or rather “barbaric” as Al-Azhar Al-Sharif put it in his statement. Stern in response to the event.
The Observatory added that the issue of burning the Qur’an is a manifestation of the assault on the religious sanctity of the other, and the religious sanctum is something of the most characteristic of man.
In fact, the matter is not merely an objection to the position of some Muslims, as much as it is a position on Islam itself, based on the phenomenon of Islamophobia that seems to reach an unacceptable extent, and the rational view realizes that it is necessary to set limits for such behavior, as this event conveys the conflict has led to an outright religious conflict with all Muslims around the world, which could result in dire consequences.
That is why Al-Azhar Al-Sharif stated in its statement that it calls on “the human community, international institutions, and the world’s wise men, to stand up to attempts to tamper with religious sanctities, condemn these criminal acts, and put an end to the chaos of the term “freedom of expression” and its exploitation in the politics and elections market, and its misuse with regard to the provocation of Muslims and respect their sanctuaries.”
