TEHRAN — The 34th edition of the International Islamic Unity Conference is scheduled to be held online due to the spread of the coronavirus, said the chief of the conference.

The conference will be held in a webinar format from October 29 to November 3 concurrent with the Unity Week, said Hamid Shahriari, the head of the World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought, which organizes the conference.

Shahriari said a special website has been designed for such purpose which offers all the information needed for participants in the online event, Mehr reported.

The International Islamic Unity Conference is held in Iran annually in an effort to lay the ground for unity and solidarity among Muslims and provide solutions for their problems.

It gathers Shia and Sunni scholars from all over the world. Many Iranian Shia and Sunni scholars also attend the event.

“All Muslims of the world are brothers,” Saeed Babaki, a Sunni cleric from Gonbad-e Kavus, Golestan province, told the Tehran Times on the sidelines of the conference last year.

“Shias and Sunnis are brothers and they should strive for more unity so that the Islamic world would progress,” he said.

He added that the event creates empathy between Sunnis and Shias of all countries and creates more unity among Muslims throughout the world. “As a result, the religion of Islam would thrive.”

Asked to respond to certain Western countries’ claim that the Islamic Republic creates divisions among Muslims in the region by following sectarian policies, he said, “I totally disagree with this notion. The Islamic Republic promotes unity between Sunnis and Shias and it is not after creating divisions.”

“The general policy of the system is to boost the Sunni-Shia unity, and the Islamic Republic does not distinguish between followers of the two branches of Islam,” Babaki emphasized.

He also praised the security of the Islamic Republic, saying, “Iran, in terms of its security, is the best country in the region. Alhamdulillah (praise be to God), our country is very secure.”

MH/PA