Global Islam: Saudi King’s efforts at inter-faith Dialogue - A new breeze may be blowing very softly from the Saudi sands
Unusual guests, a most unusual host
Jul 24th 2008 | MADRID
From The Economist print edition
What people are not used to is the idea of Saudi Arabia and its monarch, King Abdullah, as a propagator of tolerance both within Islam, and between Islam and other faiths. Yet this month the king stepped up his effort to be a cultural and religious bridge-builder by convening a “World Conference on Dialogue”—as dreamily inclusive a title as anyone could ask for—in Madrid. The guest list included Tony Blair (now a ubiquitous figure on the inter-faith circuit), the American pastor-politician Jesse Jackson (who glad-handed everyone as though he was running for president of some global religious body) and saffron-robed Hindus as well as rabbis and Christian prelates. The Saudi visitor, standing beside King Juan Carlos of Spain in the sun-filled atrium of the Palacio Real, beamed like a benign grandfather as he took in a line of robed clerics and worthies.
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4:20 AM
Moderate Islamist here
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