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Ammon News - Deputizing for Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh, Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Mohammad Khalaileh on Tuesday led a ceremony opening the annual World Interfaith Harmony Week, which the ministry held in cooperation with the Chief Justice Department, the Iftaa Department and the Jordanian Interfaith Coexistence Research Centre.

This year's Religious Harmony Week titled: "Jordan, a model for harmony among followers of sects and religions", was held at the Islamic Cultural Centre of the King Abdullah I Mosque.

Khalaileh said in opening remarks that Islam upholds the message of compassion for the entire humanity, which was manifest in the Prophet Mohammad's dealings with the followers of the monotheistic religions and others.

Harmony Week, he said, was the culmination of pioneering work based on common denominators that provided a solid ground for religions to come together on the basis of mutual respect.

"The four schools of thought (in Islam) were a model for tolerance and acceptance of the others as they advocated for security, peace and moderation and rejected killing and destruction and the repudiation of the others," he said. Islam basically looks at the right of human beings to live in dignity and humanely, the minister pointed out.

"The call for harmony is at the core of Islamic Sharia law and guidelines that the Muslim caliphs and imams committed to throughout history," he said, adding that Sharia law prods upholding the principles of coexistence and tolerance, and that harmony grants people of different colors, races and faiths the right to live in peace, safety and security.

Grand Mufti of the Kingdom, Sheikh Abdul Karim Khasawneh told the ceremony that Jordanian Muslims and Christians have set a model for humanity and harmony and cultivated the value of good citizenship under the Hashemite leadership that won the people's loyalty as it embraced justice, equality and human dignity.

"The holy Quran addressed non-Muslim people of the book and others with kind words and respect, but had not alienated them," he said, underlining that Islam is a religion of tolerance that accepts and respects the others and enhances their coexistence with the Muslim community.

Father Nabil Haddad, President of the Jordan Interfaith Coexistence Research Centre, said that Jordan's harmony model emanates from the Hashemite leadership, which advocates that everyone on Jordanian soil lives in peace and security, stressing his pride in the Amman Message that calls for peace and compassion.

Noting that World Interfaith Harmony Week is originally a Jordanian proposal that was unanimously adopted by the United Nations and is observed at the first week of February, he said: "today we celebrate an international harmony week, which carried a Jordanian birth certificate around which humanity came together on an October day, years ago in New York, so that the countries of the world adopt the initiative that the King carried out of the Hashemite School of Thought and was born by the Mother of Documents, the Amman Message."

Chief Justice Abdul Hafez Rabatah said that the annual event, which was the fruit of a great effort by His Majesty King Abdullah II, had become a UN and global occasion to emphasise harmony between the followers of religions and the importance of constructive inter-faith dialogue and rejecting the ideology of extremism and bigotry.