Muslim Leaders Vow To Protect Rights Of Religious Minorities

[rug]

Religious leaders from more than 100 predominantly Muslim countries attended a summit in Marrakech to counter the extremist ideology that fuels groups like ISIS. (Martijn Booister/Flickr)

Updated January 28, 2016·6:42 PM ET
Published January 28, 2016·4:18 PM ET
Tom Gjelten

The rise of ISIS and other Muslim extremist groups in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia has brought horrific persecution of non-Muslims — Christians, Jews and other religious minorities. Now, a group of Islamic scholars, Muslim leaders and government ministers from Muslim-majority countries has promised to work together to protect those minorities, saying Islam forbids religious persecution.

More than 100 countries were represented at the gathering of Muslim leaders in Marrakech this week, sponsored by the Moroccan government and the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, an organization led by Islamic scholar Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah.

One of the organizers, Sheikh Hamza Yusuf from the United States, says the meeting had one focus: the plight of religious minorities in Muslim lands.

"We have people being enslaved into sexual slavery," he told NPR from Marrakech. "We have Christian churches that have been there for long before Islam was in these lands, that are being destroyed. And we have Jews in Yemen, one of the oldest Jewish communities, now the very existence of which is threatened."

http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/01/28/464688623/muslim-leaders-vow-to-protect-rights-of-religious-minorities

3:46 audio at above link.

Declaration from the meeting at link below.

http://www.marrakeshdeclaration.org/index.html

[Fumesucker]

1. That's not how religions roll when they have power

I don't believe a word of it.

[rug]

2. I don't believe a word of your title.

[Fumesucker]

3. And here I thought you knew something about history

[rug]

4. Which is why I don't believe your title.

[cleanhippie]

5. He does know.

It's just that he's using his "other ways of knowing", which unfortunately, gives us that response.

[rug]

6. Looks like yo're the one afflivted with "other ways of knowing" if you think you know what I know.

Maybe it's from conferring with the "us" you always reference.