'Historic' Muslim gathering calls for protection of religious minorities

About 300 Muslim scholars, imams, and government representatives recently gathered in Morocco to call for the protection of religious minorities in the Muslim world. A small delegation of non-Muslims, including Jews, Christians, Yazidis, and Buddhists, also attended.

“Enough bloodshed. We are heading to annihilation. It is time for cooperation,” said co-organizer Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah, president of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslims Societies.

The January conference hosted by the King of Morocco resulted in the Marrakesh Declaration, promoting ideas of “freedom of movement, property ownership, mutual solidarity, and defense” and “principles of justice and equality before the law.”

Travis Wussow of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, who attended the event, said it included seven specific calls to action and the conference’s legacy “will depend entirely on the extent to which these calls to action are implemented, not just in one place, but in every country that signed on to the declaration.”

World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit praised the document as timely and significant.

“With this declaration, Muslim leaders are showing the way toward a future of living together on a shared platform of equal rights, mutual care, and respect,” Tveit said.

The Rev. A. Roy Medley represented American Baptist Churches USA at the event and called it a “historic step forward in interfaith relations.”

William Stark of International Christian Concern said the event’s significance was the “counter narrative.”

“ISIS is in the news more than moderate Islam every day, so whether this actually provides constitutional change in a place like Pakistan … highly unlikely, but it helps create a counter narrative of what Islam needs to look like. In my mind, it’s actually quite significant,” Stark said.

But some observers criticized the conference for ignoring tension within Islam, including Muslim-on-Muslim persecution. Other critics noted the declaration’s praise of Muhammad’s “Charter of Medina” wrongly claimed it “guaranteed religious liberty of all, regardless of faith.”

King’s College associate professor Joseph Loconte noted in Providence that Jews were expelled from Medina soon after the charter was issued in 622, and non-Muslims became second-class citizens.

Writing for Religion News Service, Egyptian Copt Ayman S. Ibrahim was “not optimistic” about the declaration. He noted Morocco doesn’t acknowledge its underground Christian church, and many other countries involved in the conference prohibit Muslims from converting to other faiths.

“There is no doubt the declaration the summit produced is remarkable,” Ibrahim wrote. “The significant question is: Will it lead to real action? One can only hope it brings real fruits and that religious freedom for minorities will become a reality. Will Christianity be recognized in Saudi Arabia? Will churches be built in Mecca, like mosques are being built in the West?”

Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution, also expressed doubts.

“These efforts are compromised from the get-go because of their association with states that don’t have legitimacy among young, angry, frustrated Muslim youths in the Arab world,” he told The New York Times.

“The target audience should be people who are predisposed to radicalism,” Hamid added.