Excellencies,

Assalamu 'alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh

It is my pleasure to welcome you at the headquarters of the Secretariat General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) where you are meeting to fulfill the noble mission of preparing the drafts of the two Universal Documents on the Dialogue Among Contemporary Civilizations.

The Islamic Symposium on the said Dialogue, held in Tehran, May 03- 05, 1999, in response to the gracious invitation of His Excellency Sayed Mohammad Khatami, the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Chairman of the Eighth Islamic Summit, grouping representatives of the OIC member states, laid the foundations and principles upon which the Dialogue between the Islamic Civilization and other contemporary civilizations should rest. The symposium, which brought together in one place an elite of intellectuals from ah over the Islamic world, was designed to align the Muslims' attitudes towards the issues around which the Dialogue would probably revolve, to avoid any differences that might spring Up over the issues when they would be taken Up at the UN General Assembly session.

As soon as the idea of holding a dialogue with other civilizations was considered, after being initiated by President Khatami, the OIC Secretariat and the organizational working group that met at OIC headquarters in Jeddah for the purpose, in June 1998, felt the necessity of conducting an Islamic-Islamic Dialogue before doing 50 with others. It was agreed during that dialogue not to engage any discussion about sectarian differences or go into marginal details, but to focus strictly on highlighting the tolerant image of Islam according to its integral fundamentals on which no divergences whatsoever existed between Muslims, such as propagating and disseminating Islam's civilization and culture and renouncing violence, except, God may forbid, in cases of self-defense; cooperation among peoples; respect of the freedom of creed; recognition of variety; collaboration for good and piety; opposition of aggression and injustice; and working for the triumph of the oppressed victims of injustice at the hands of the unfair. Those are values considered as the rich pillars upholding the modem principles for international peace and security to reign supreme, the sovereignty of countries to be observed and aggression against their territorial integrity to be prevented, while promoting peoples' rights to self-determination and the protection of human rights, including the sanctity of life and protection of their property, honor, mind, creed as well as personal and collective safety.

The Tehran Declaration, issued by the Islamic Symposium on Dialogue Among Civilizations, enunciated such principles with the utmost accuracy and clarity and, for the first time, set a framework for the advocated dialogue with other contemporary civilizations. It also defined its framework and those participating in it, namely researchers, intellectuals, learned people, specialists in the various branches of human knowledge, including arts, culture and economics as well as representatives of the Civil society, the United Nations, international cultural organizations and other major bodies in the world. There was a consensus to this effect on the part of the delegations representing the Islamic countries whose interest was vested in the fundamental problems facing the Islamic Ummah and the way to present them in the context of the would-be dialogue while avoiding marginal differences of a nature as, possibly, to jeopardize the Islamic world and its unity.

Excellencies,

The idea of dialogue to replace conflict and confrontation among civilizations has made considerable steps and lately achieved a tangible progress in international fora and related organizations. It was warmly greeted by world public opinion, which led the United Nations into adopting a resolution calling for the year 2001 to be proclaimed as the Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations, confident as it was that dialogue is the only path conducive to better acquaintance and rapprochement among civilizations for tolerance and understanding to prevail and fanaticism and extremism to be combated, as a prelude for peace to cover the entire globe. The call for such a dialogue, at the beginning, met with stiff resistance on the part of numerous parties because of the previous paradigm that governed inter-cultural relations and the religious and ethnic wars that marked the humankind since time immemorial. Islamic culture in Western countries was the victim of a ferocious onslaught, accused of stagnation and rigidity, anachronism or the inability to catch up with modernity. It was similarly branded as allegedly engendering violence and bearing in the womb of its values a penchant for hegemony and domination. One major Western intellectual put it at the forefront of cultures capable of threatening Western culture in the coming century after the withering away of Communism. But such an aggression was nothing new. In fact, for the past two centuries, the Islamic Ummah, after most of its countries were colonized by the West, was subjected to the same onslaught which targeted its cultural values and the nobility of its civilization, which explains to a certain degree the reticence and apprehension of some members of the elite of the Islamic world, including Ulema, religious scholars and intellectuals, when it comes to the idea of the dialogue in question. But despite ail that, engaging in a dialogue with contemporary civilizations has become a necessity imposed by the developments and deep transformations witnessed by human societies at present. Besides, holding a dialogue with them would enable us acquaint them with Islam's civilization and culture and, hence, take action to dispel ail the deformations, distortions and calumnies appended to them, although having nothing do 50 whatsoever with Islam. [In addition to ail that, we believe that the dialogue with contemporary civilizations under the ambit of the United Nations would enhance the prestige of marginalized cultures in the world and preserve their specificities in the face of globalization, which is imposing a given cultural pattern to the entire world].

Whence the vital nature of the mission entrusted to this Committee of experts and specialists in Islamic civilizations and the major responsibility which consists in drafting the two documents comprising the universal declaration and the plan of action to be submitted, on behalf of the Islamic world and its nations, to the international fora to highlight our position towards the Dialogue and its anticipated outcome as well as the basic principles which it will proceed from. In this connection, it is imperative for the two documents to be expressive of the general Islamic vision unanimously subscribed to by the representatives of the member states at the symposium in Tehran. Likewise, the letter addressed to the various civilizations must call for cooperation, pave the way and clear the air for mutual enrichment along with the setting aside and denunciation of ail that is of a nature as to jeopardize relations based on dialogue among the civilizations to the benefit of humanity at large which has to be saved from sterile conflicts and the bloody wars that have been plaguing it for centuries. The letter must also stress the necessity of leaving no stone unturned to settle disputes or differences peacefully, in application of God's injunction in the Qur' an: "Invite to the Way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracions..." (XVI: 125).

Excellencies,