Saudi inter-faith conference ends with anti-terrorism pact

|PIC1|Religious leaders concluded a historic inter-faith conference on Friday with a call for an international pact to combat terrorism.

Representatives - which included Islamic, Christian and Jewish leaders - asked the UN General Assembly to call a special session to help foster dialogue between "followers of religions, civilisations and cultures" and prevent "a clash of civilisations," according to Agence France-Presse.

"Terrorism is a universal phenomenon that requires unified international efforts to combat it in a serious, responsible and just way," the three-day World Conference on Dialogue said in a final statement.

"This demands an international agreement on defining terrorism, addressing its root causes and achieving justice and stability in the world."

The statement was read at the closing session of the closed-door gathering, organised by Saudi King Abdullah and held in Madrid. It echoed the king's speech at the opening session where he rejected religious extremism and said conflicts were created by misinterpretations, not by religions themselves.

"There is a need for continuity in dialogue and not depending only on resorting to the UN," Abdullah al-Turki, secretary general of the Muslim World League, told a news conference. "This is going to be the first of a series of conferences. We have talked about organising a conference in Japan."

The Mecca-based Muslim World League had organised the interfaith conference for Saudi King Abdullah.

Participants on Thursday also called for religions to re-examine the treatment and position of women, whom some described as marginalised by religions.

Saudi Arabia is the only Arab Muslim country that bans all non-Islamic religious practices despite having a sizable number of non-Muslims in the country. Wahhabism, a extremely conservative strain of Sunni Islam, is practised in Saudi Arabia.

This year, US Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended again that the State Department designate Saudi Arabia as a Country of Particular Concern - the worst religious freedom violation category - for its egregious and systematic violation of religious freedom.

The government is accused of promoting hate ideologies towards non-Wahhabi Muslims through its official educational textbooks.

Among what the textbooks teach include commanding Muslims to "hate" all non-Wahhabi Muslims; instructing students not to "greet", "befriend", "imitate", "show loyalty to", "be courteous to", or "respect" non-believers; and instruct that the "fighting between Muslims and Jews" will continue until Judgment Day.

Some of the prominent religious and political figures at the event included evangelist Franklin Graham, former Vice President Al Gore, American civil rights leader the Rev Jesse Jackson, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Rabbi David Rosen.