CAIRO
Religious leaders gathered in Cairo have said that all armed Islamist groups are "sinners."
"All armed groups and sectarian militias that have adopted violence and terrorism under religious slogans have nothing to do with true Islam," read a closing communiqué issued Thursday by attendees of a two-day conference ostensibly devoted to "combatting terrorism and extremism."
The two-day event was held by Egypt's Al-Azhar, the world's oldest seat of Sunni-Muslim scholarship. It was attended by some 120 representatives of various governments and international organizations.
Attendees said they "deplored vicious crimes of forced displacement of Christians and other religious and ethnic groups."
They also urged Arab Christians not to leave the region, asserting that the "wave of extremism that the Arab world is currently suffering from will subside."
They also called on religious leaders in Arab and Muslim countries to "assume their responsibility before God and history" by working to end sectarian and ethnic strife in their respective countries, especially in Bahrain, Iraq, Yemen and Syria.
They also condemned "terrorist assaults by Zionist forces" in the occupied Palestinian territories, saying that Israel was "targeting Palestinian Muslims and Christians alike by violating the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound [in East Jerusalem] and churches."
Meeting participants called on international actors to take Israel to the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court over the self-proclaimed Jewish state's repeated "assaults" on Muslim and Christian holy sites.
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