Official Explains Process of Forming Muslim World Quranic Parliament

IQNA – Efforts to form a Quranic parliament of the Islamic world are aimed at creating a venue for solving the problems of Muslims with Quranic formulas, an official said.

Hojat-ol-Islam Seyed Mostafa Hosseini Neyshabouri, director general of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization’s (ICRO) Tabligh (propagation) department, elaborated on the process of forming the Quranic parliament of the Islamic world in interview with IQNA. Following are excerpts from his remarks:

For a long time, the minds of those interested in the field of Quranic diplomacy have been preoccupied with the context and mechanism in which Quranic networking can be established, and individuals in the field of Quran and these capacities can be organized into a network and Quranic interactions can be carried out, until unity and coherence are achieved so that the Islamic world can solve its problems through the Quran.

This mentality existed for a long time until the Islamic Republic of Iran and the esteemed head of the organization (ICRO) proposed this idea at the 20th session of the International Muslim Forum, which was held in Moscow last year with the participation of forty-one countries. The goal is to form a network within the framework of the Quranic Parliament of the Islamic World so that we can solve the problems of Muslims with Quranic formulas.

It is good to have activities in the field of the Quran, but if these are not complementary and cannot solve problems in different areas of lifestyle or in the areas of education, social life, and spirituality, it has not achieved its lofty goals.

Also, one of the problems of the Islamic world is that enemies try to occupy us and destroy our energies and capacities based on conflicts and divisive elements. But we can neutralize these conspiracies based on the profound teachings of the Holy Quran and using the very high capacity of the Holy Quran.

If the Islamic world were united and sympathetic, all the problems Muslims are facing these days could be solved, and issues like Gaza, Palestine and Syria would not have arisen at all. We have the best axis, which is a miracle, and we can all feel that miracle right now, and its revelational concepts can be used in different fields after decoding and interpreting it. I believe that this is the solution to all the problems of the Islamic world and indeed the world of humanity.

(Regarding preparations for establishing the Quranic Parliament of the Muslim World), we had very detailed meetings. After this discussion, this idea was seriously raised in various negotiations and meetings with intellectuals and elders of the Islamic world, and everyone either praised it or admitted that there is a need for such a Quranic organization.

Regarding the main idea and also the proposed structure and statute, we had good meetings with the experts and activists of this field. We met with the esteemed head of the JAKIM organization, which is the most important religious institution in Malaysia, as well as with high-ranking Quranic and religious officials of Indonesia. We traveled to Iraq and had meetings with the Shia and Sunni Waqf departments and the Dar al-Quran centers and the esteemed officials of Islamic seminaries.

We held a pre-session of the Islamic World Quranic Parliament with Quranic scholars from Lebanon, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and other countries, including the Grand Mufti of Uganda. In that meeting, a preliminary meeting was planned to better understand this idea and its implementation, with more than twenty countries present.

The path is such that after obtaining opinions, we can reach an agreement and understanding in the Islamic world and among the Quranic elders. The draft statute, after hammering out in domestic circles and then in circles of the Islamic world and most importantly, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, should be approved, and after that, the process of forming its secretariat for the membership of the main members and commission members should be formed.

This is certainly a process that will take time, but it is moving forward. There has been good progress, given that there is no doubt about the necessity of forming this parliament. We have moved beyond discussions about necessity and are now in the process of forming it, and fortunately, the consensus that exists is allowing the work to proceed more quickly.

According to our calendar, the statute of the Muslim World Quranic Parliament will be finalized by the end of September and submitted to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation for approval. While some preliminary meetings have been held, several more preliminary meetings are planned, and then its secretariat will officially begin its work at the same time as the statute is approved by the OIC.

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