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Pope and Grand Imam of Al-Azhar attend historic meeting
Pope Francis met the grand imam of Cairo's Al-Azhar Mosque at the Vatican in a historic encounter, sealed with a symbolic hug and exchange of kisses
The two religious leaders sealed their meeting by exchange a hug and several kisses
The first Vatican meeting on Monday between the leader of the world's Catholics and the highest authority in Sunni Islam marks the peak of a significant improvement in relations between the two faiths since Francis took office in 2013.
In a statement on the trip, Al-Azhar, an institution that also comprises a prestigious seat of learning, said Tayeb had accepted Francis's invitation in order to "explore efforts to spread peace and co-existence." Francis has made numerous conciliatory gestures to the Muslim world since being elected in early 2013, thus Tayeb decided to accept the invitation to Rome."Our meeting is the message," Francis said in a brief comment at the start of his meeting with Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, Vatican officials told a small pool of reporters covering the event.
"If it were not for these good positions the meeting would not be happening," the imam's deputy, Abbas Shuman, told AFP on Sunday.
The "very cordial" meeting lasted around 30 minutes, the Vatican said in a statement after the talks. In all, the imam spent just over an hour at St Peter's.
“The pope and the imam had mainly addressed the common challenges faced by the authorities and faithful of the major religions of the world," Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said in a statement.
During the meeting, the pope presented the imam with a copy of his recent encyclical, Laudato Si', a letter to the faithful in which he urges the world to wake up to the threat posed by climate change and also calls for a rebalancing of the economic relationship between the industrialised and developing worlds.
Ties had been badly soured previously when the now-retired Benedict made a September 2006 speech in which he was perceived to have linked Islam to violence, sparking deadly protests in several countries and reprisal attacks on Christians.
After the tensions of the Benedict years, Francis moved quickly to set a new tone, sending a personal message to the Muslim world to mark the end of the first month of Ramadan of his pontificate.
