Mar 27, 2008 / 23:05 pm
A proposal for religious dialogue presented by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has prompted warm reactions from several Jewish, Christian, and Muslim leaders in what could be a major development in inter-religious relations, the Associated Press reports.
"The idea is to ask representatives of all monotheistic religions to sit together with their brothers in faith and sincerity to all religions as we all believe in the same God," King Abdullah said Monday night at a Riyadh seminar on "Culture and the Respect of Religions."
King Abdullah said he presented the idea to Pope Benedict XVI when he visited the Vatican in November of last year. Saying the Pope had “warmly welcomed” him in “a meeting of a human to a human which I would never forget,” the king said he aimed “to seek the consent of Allah according to what he ordered in the religions: the Torah, Bible and Quran.”
“I pray for Allah to let us meet on one word,” the king said, according to a statement published on the website of Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.