ABU DHABI – The 5th Annual Conference of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies was inaugurated yesterday, December 5, in Abu Dhabi, UAE, Urdu Point reported.

The three-day event is being organized under the theme, “Alliance of Virtues: An Opportunity for Global Peace“. Some 800 representatives of various religions, international human rights organizations, and a wide range of scholars, thinkers and researchers worldwide are taking part in the forum.

Among those who attended the honoring ceremony were Muhammad bin Abdul Karim al-Issa, Secretary-General of the Muslim World League, and Samuel D. Brownback, United States Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, and others.

Sheikh Abdallah bin Bayyah, the forum’s president stressed that “the forum’s approach is based upon values ​​of tolerance, peace and coexistence among peoples as well as promoting interfaith dialogue for the benefit of all mankind.”

In his statement, Bin Bayyah expressed: “We’re pleased to meet today from different cultural backgrounds, religions and races to participate in this important forum.”

He stressed that the Alliance of Virtues contributes to creating a more effective mechanism for cooperation and co-existence, based on values ​​and virtues, while pointing out that its objectives include forming a front of clerics to call for peace and reject exploiting religion in conflicts and wars.

“Humanity is together abroad a single ship at risk of sinking. It is a moral obligation on all of us to take hold of those who would strike holes in the hull”, he added.

Sheikh Bin Bayyah, 83, is a Mauritanian professor of Islamic studies at the King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, KSA. He is one of the leading Muslim scholars of our times, and a specialist in all four traditional Sunni schools, with an emphasis on the Maliki school of law.

“Violence has become the language of every bankrupt person in the East and in the West, and hate speech a popular commodity. But there is no despair of God’s comforting mercy. There are still peace-loving people united in purpose”, he said.

Sheikh Bin Bayyah is involved in a number of scholarly councils including the Islamic Fiqh Council in KSA.

Last February, together with Sheikh Hamza Yusuf and 400 Faith Leaders, they signed a Declaration of Tolerance in Washington calling for promoting peace between followers of the three Abrahamic faiths and cultivating sentiments of goodwill and empathy toward each other.

The three-day forum concludes on Friday, December 7th., under the auspices of H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, who attended the opening session.