VATICAN:More than 130 Muslim scholars from around the globe called yesterday for peace and understanding between Islam and Christianity, saying "the very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake".
In an unprecedented letter to Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders, 138 Muslim scholars said finding common ground between the world's biggest faiths was not simply a matter for polite dialogue between religious leaders.
"If Muslims and Christians are not at peace, the world cannot be at peace. With the terrible weaponry of the modern world, with Muslims and Christians intertwined everywhere as never before, no side can unilaterally win a conflict between more than half of the world's inhabitants. Our common future is at stake. The very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake," the scholars wrote, adding that Islam and Christianity already agreed love of God and neighbour were the two most important commandments of their faiths.
Relations between Muslims and Christians have been strained as al-Qaeda has struck around the world, and as the United States and other western countries intervened in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Such a joint letter is unprecedented in Islam, which has no central authority that speaks on behalf of all worshippers. The list of signatories includes senior figures throughout the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. They represent Sunni, Shia and Sufi schools of Islam.
Among them were the grand muftis of Egypt, Palestine, Oman, Jordan, Syria, Bosnia and Russia and many imams and scholars. War-torn Iraq was represented by both Shias and Sunnis. Mustafa Cagrici, the mufti who prayed with the pope in Istanbul's Blue Mosque last year, was also on the list, as was Egyptian television preacher Amr Khaled.
The letter was addressed to the pope, leaders of Orthodox Christian churches, Anglican leader Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury and the heads of the world alliances of the Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist and Reformed churches.
Dr Williams said he welcomed it as "indicative of the kind of relationship for which we yearn in all parts of the world". A Vatican official said the church would not comment until it had time to read the letter.
Aref Ali Nayed, a senior adviser to the Cambridge Interfaith Programme, said the signatories represented the "99.9 per cent of Muslims" who follow mainstream schools and oppose extremism. "In Islam, we have had a problem for some time now where the mainstream voices are drowned out by a minority that choose violence," he said.