The reverse side of the same coin
The two most exceptional religious leaders I have ever met are the Dalai Lama, and only very fleetingly, when he once came to the Palace of Westminster. His humanity and humility shone through.
Then there is the Grand Mufti of Syria, Sheikh Ahmad Hassoun. When 250,000 Lebanese fled to Syria during the Israel- Hezbollah conflict, he went to greet them at the Sednaya monastery with Catholic and Orthodox bishops. To a unique extent in the Middle East – apart from in Lebanon- there is no hostility towards the country’s Christian minority. Their numbers have been swollen by the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians who have been forced to flee.
Sheikh Hassoun has asked me twice to speak at Friday prayers in his mosque in Aleppo. I cannot imagine this happening to a Gentile Member of Parliament in virtually any other part of the world. There was no difficulty with the congregation, on the contrary. The Grand Mufti talks of his Christian and Jewish brothers and sisters, of our common link to Abraham. When visiting Britain with the Greek Catholic patriarch, he met representatives of the Jewish community and the Archbishop of Canterbury. He radiates spirituality, a joy of life and a generosity of spirit.
When we view the scenes and attitudes in Khartoum, it is light years away from anything he believes in and stands for. I keep reminding myself of this. I can just imagine how he, and many others of his co-religionists, must feel over this most astonishing situation in the Sudan.