On May 16 and 17, the FICRT Foundation held the first edition of the Forum ‘From the Islam-Christian Dialogue to the Abrahamic Family’, in collaboration with the University Institute of Religious Sciences of the Complutense University and the Unesco Chair of Conflict Resolution of the University of Cordoba. The event took place at Casa Árabe’s headquarters in Cordoba.
This Forum, whose first edition was held in 2022 and which the FICRT Foundation intends to continue on an annual basis, aims to extending interfaith dialogue beyond Islam and Christianityencompassing all the religions of the so-called Abrahamic Familythat is, those who venerate the figure of Abraham as father and prophet.
The Chairman of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees, Jumaa AlKaabi, inaugurated this first edition of the Cordoba Forum, whose objective is to take up the baton and broaden the scope of the two first Islamo-Christian meetings held in the same city in 1974 and 1979including among the speakers representatives of other religious denominations.
The promotion of dialogue and understanding between religions, which is one of the fundamental principles of the FICRT Foundation, was promoted at the time by the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965)which recognized religious plurality as a person’s right to a sincere choice of the path to follow in order to find the truth.
This movement has experienced an important impulse during the pontificate of the Pope Francis and crystallized with the pontiff’s historic visit to Abu Dhabi, where he met with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed Al-Tayyeband together they signed the Document on Human Fraternity, for World Peace and Common Coexistence’.on February 4, 2019. A date that the General Assembly of the United Nations has decided to commemorate annually, declaring February 4 as the International Day of Human Fraternity.
In this context, this First Cordoba Forum organized by the FICRT Foundation featured four panels, distributed over the two days of May 16 and 17, with the participation of 11 prestigious speakers representing various states, universities, research centers and religious denominations.
From the hand of these experts, the attendees were able to know first hand how the interreligious dialogue is being approached, until reaching conclusions that were embodied in the Manifesto of Córdoba ‘The Abrahamic Family and Human Fraternity’, which was presented at the conclusion of the forum.
