|
King Muhammad To Hold Meeting on Muslim Image
 |
| Moroccan Monarch to patronize the meeting |
RABAT, Morocco, Jan. 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – The Moroccan monarch, King Muhammad
VI, will hold a symposium organized by the Rabat-based Islamic Scientific, Educational and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) and which would be held in Rabat January 9–10. The specialized symposium’s main topic would be "The Muslim World’s Image in the Western Media: Between Fairness and Bias," news agencies reported Tuesday.
The participants include thinkers, researchers and information specialists from the Arab world, Islamic countries, the United States, Great Britain, France and other Western nations.
The symposium will address four main topics: the position of Western media vis-à-vis the religion and civilization of the Muslim world, the objective coverage of events relating to the Muslim world, the influence of political stances on the drafting and orientation of news items, and how to work out a free and fair information package, reported Saudi-based International Islamic News Agency (IINA).
Director General of ISESCO, Abdul Aziz Othman Al-Tuweijry, announced that the symposium would be held as part of ISESCO's efforts to redress the image of Islam in the West, to counter the tendentious campaign waged by Western media against Islam.
Tuweijry added that the symposium aims at acquainting the international public opinion with the crystal-clear truths of Islam.
“This way it will be possible to disseminate genuine information on the Muslim communities and present, to the world, the clear position of the Muslim world in connection with the international changes triggered by the series of events witnessed by the world since September 11,” he added.
Muslim groups and organizations worldwide have been doing their best so as to encounter the anti-Islam campaign, launched in the Western media bodies after the September 11 attacks in the United States.
Within the same context, at least 150 Muslim leaders and scholars from 50 countries across the world gathered in Jakarta, Indonesia, in late December 2001, to take part in a two-day summit titled “Islam and the Future of World Peace.”
The summit discussed, among other things, poverty, spiritual morality, human rights, education, development, inter-cultural dialogue, religion and faith.
Those present at the summit represented Muslims in South East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, Middle East, Europe, Africa and the United States.
Among Muslim leaders attending were former Indonesian President, Abdurrahman Wahid, Akbar Muhammad of the U.S.-based Nation of Islam, Sheikh Ahmad Tigani Ben Omar of the U.S.-based Universal Islamic Center, M. Manzoor Alam of India's Institute of Objective Studies, and Mumtaz Ahmad of the Hampton University.
At the close of the symposium a declaration known as the "Jakarta Declaration" was read out. In the declaration, the Muslim leaders stressed the fact that Islam was a religion of peace and justice as well as a way of life.
They also stressed that religion, the definition of which was given in the Holy Qur'an, was a source of reference to solve every challenge of the century.
Further, some 100 Arab intellectuals met at the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo late November 2001 to argue against the theory of the “clash of civilizations”.
Arab League (AL) Secretary General, Amr Mussa, has called for the meeting which aimed at defining a general frame for an Arab plan of action as regards civilization dialogue.
The gathering was convened on the initiative of the secretary general and brought together intellectuals from all of the 22 member states along the theme, "The Dialogue of Civilizations: An Exchange and Not a Conflict".
The Egyptian daily newspaper, Al-Ahram quoted Mussa as saying that after the September 11 attacks, "we observed that there have been doubts (in the west) about Arab citizens and some (reprehensible) practices against the Arabs, and that is why we have convened this conference to ready ourselves against the propagation of theses which evoke a conflict of civilizations."
|
