Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani called the Islamic world Wednesday to help Iraqis fend off the
"unofficial US colonization" of their country.
Rafsanjani told an International Islamic Conference on Interfaith Dialogue
that a long-term security agreement between Washington and Baghdad would not be
signed.
"We should be aware of the danger the Iraqi people face and help them
against permanent occupation," said Rafsanjani, who is currently head of
Iran's powerful Expediency Council and Assembly of Experts.
"In order to have a dialogue with other religions, we need to start
talking among ourselves," he said. "The call needs to be directed at
ourselves first of all, and all the sects need to agree on shared points."
The Mecca gathering, sponsored by the Muslim World League, aims at unifying
Muslim views before an interfaith dialogue that Saudi King Abdullah wants to
launch with Christian and Jewish religious figures.
In a speech opening the three-day conference, the monarch criticized
extremists, saying they posed a challenge to Muslims by their
"narrow-mindedness" and "ignorance."
Abdullah told 500 Muslim religious scholars, intellectuals and media figures
they should let the world know that Muslims were a "voice of justice and
human and moral values."
The Islamic world has to deal with major challenges created by Muslims
advocating extremism and intolerance, which are anathema to the spirit of
Islam, the king said.
The Mecca meeting will also discuss the future of inter-faith dialogue against
the background of what Muslims perceive as a widespread Islamophobia in the
west.
Saudi Arabia has been battling al-Qaeda militants, who have launched a campaign
of violence in the kingdom.
The country, which is the birthplace of Islam and home to its holiest places,
adheres to a hardline Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam.
Non-Muslims living in Saudi Arabia are forbidden to build public houses of
worship. But the Saudi king, seen as a reformer, has taken steps to loosen
strict religious and social customs.
His landmark visit to the Vatican in 2007 and call for interfaith dialogue are
seen as part of this reform drive. The Vatican runs its own interfaith dialogue with Muslim clerics, dpa
reported.