Iran President Urges Muslims to Recognize Other Religions

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has called on Muslim people to respect other religions and sects, saying those who claim to have a better religion should prove it in practice.

“Unity begins with believing each other, and we should recognize each other’s religions,” Rouhani said in a Sunday post in his Twitter account.

“No one can be coerced into changing his/her path,” he added.

“If someone thinks his/her faith and religion is a better one, this should be proved in practice,” Rouhani noted.

His remarks came as Iran is marking the Islamic Unity Week, a ceremony annually held between two dates of the birthday of Prophet Muhammad, one narrated by Sunnis and the other by Shiites.

Imam Khomeini was the one who proposed to call the interval between the two dates as Islamic unity week.

Earlier on Sunday, the Iranian president said, “The people of the region have shown that there is no distance among various communities and religions.

“Shiite and Sunni scholars and elites in Iran and elsewhere in the region have taken great strides in this regard,” he noted in an address to a ceremony held in Chabahar in southeastern Iran to inaugurate the first phase of Shahid Beheshti Port Development Plan.

“Some thought that our region is a region of war, conflict, and Shiite-Sunni confrontation… and the land of foreign intervention,” the president said, adding that today, however, the region has distanced itself from those issues.

What matters is that everyone should make efforts to boost solidarity and unity in this region, Rouhani stressed.

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