Jordan’s Religious Leader Denounces Muslim Baptism

In a rebuke of Saturday’s televised ceremony, the head of Jordan’s Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center Aref Ali Nayed denounced ”the Vatican’s deliberate and provocative act of baptising Allam on such a special occasion and in such a spectacular way”.

The head of Jordan’s Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center on Wednesday called the baptism of journalist Magdi Allam a deliberate and provocative act.

In a rebuke of Saturday’s televised ceremony, Aref Ali Nayed denounced “the Vatican’s deliberate and provocative act of baptising Allam on such a special occasion and in such a spectacular way”.

Nayed has called for greater inter-faith dialogue and good will.

“It is sad that the intimate and personal act of a religious conversion is made into a triumphalist tool for scoring points,” he said in a written statement.

Nayed said Pope Benedict XVI’s actions came “at a most unfortunate time when sincere Muslims and Catholics are working very hard to mend ruptures between the two communities”.

The Jordanian scholar has been at the forefront of an initiative gathering more than 130 Muslim scholars who recently wrote to the Pope and other Christian leaders calling for greater dialogue and good will between Muslims and Christians.

The Vatican has also been keen to repair relations with Muslims, particularly after the crisis caused by a speech the Pope gave in Germany in 2006, in which he appeared to associate Islam with violence.

Nayed added that despite the Vatican’s actions, the initiative for dialogue to improve relations would continue.

“Our basis for dialogue is not a tit-for-tat logic of ‘reciprocity’ but a compassionate theology of mending,” he wrote. –IRNA

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