Bahrain Crisis Result of Religious Discrimination: Cleric
Seyyed Majid al-Mashaal made the remark in reaction to a call the sheikh of Egypt’s Al-Azhar Islamic Center for dialogue between Shia and Sunni Muslims in Bahrain.
“We have no objection to dialogue between schools of thought and welcome it, too,” al-Mashaal said in a post on Twitter.
He added that the problem in Bahrain, however, is not a sectarian one to require talks between denominations.
“It is a political crisis that requires a serious national dialogue,” al-Mashaal underlined.
The relations between followers of different schools of thought in Bahrain and other Muslim world countries are good and if sometimes there are some resentments, they are because of irrational moves by extremists who are few and isolated, he stated.
Bahrain’s Muslim Scholars Council was founded in October 2004 but the Manama regime authorities arbitrarily dissolved it in January 2014.
Addressing a conference on dialogue between East and East in Manama on Friday, Al-Azhar chief Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb had called for Islamic-Islamic dialogue with the participation of Shia and Sunni scholars.
“I and major scholars of Al-Azhar and Muslim Council of Elders are ready with open arms to sit down together on one roundtable with our Shia brothers to put aside our differences and strengthen our Islamic unity,” he said.
Such a dialogue, he maintained, will aim at chasing away any talk of hate, provocation and excommunication and setting aside ancient and modern conflict in all its forms.
“I call on my brothers, Muslim scholars, across the world of every doctrine, sect and school of thought to hold an Islamic dialogue,” el-Tayeb stressed.
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