TEHRAN – Top Iranian cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Taskhiri has called for dialogue among world’s religions particularly the Islamic sects in order to find common grounds to bridge their many differences.

Taskhiri, the secretary general of ‘the World Assembly for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought’, described proximity among Islamic sects as “finding common grounds and having robust dialogue among such religious sects.”
“In order to realize the true definition of ‘proximity’ it is necessary to identify common grounds and extend the scale of such grounds through holding robust and religious dialogue,” he underlined.
The top religious scholar further stressed the need to develop a mechanism for cooperation among followers of different religions to reach harmony on those common grounds.
“To safeguard inter-religious commonalities we should focus on establishing some kind of understanding among ‘religious authorities’ since they are the ones who are familiar with different views and perspectives of their religion,” Taskhiri pointed out.
He added, “The culture of religious (rapprochement) proximity should then be extended from religious authorities to elites to be spread in the society.”
Taskhiri blamed the enemies of Islam for their conspiracies which have been responsible for the past failures to bridge the gap between Islamic sects.
The cleric also said since the “interests of some Islamic governments have been at stake” they have refused to “support such objective”.
“The problem between Islamic sects lies in exchanging accusations of atheism and fanaticism which harm the unity of Muslims and spreading the sense of separation and hatred, whereas, Islam encourages dialogue among Muslims.