TEHRAN (Dispatches) – A two-day international conference on fighting Takfirism opened here Wednesday, with more than 500 Shia and Sunni scholars from 90 countries attending the event.
Participants are discussing attempts by actors within and outside the Muslim countries to divide the Ummah and portray it in a bad light, as manifested in Takfirism being promoted by certain parties.
The extremist Takfiri ideology, which features branding people of other faiths as "infidels,” is mostly rooted in Wahhabism, the radical cult-like creed dominating Saudi Arabia.
The conference began with a keynote speech by Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and the chairman of the Islamic Awakening International Assembly.
Velayati said Islam’s enemies seek to subjugate Muslim countries, create insecurity within them, and plunder their resources by whatever means at their disposal, including the propagation of Takfirism.
The phenomenon, he said, served to hamper the spread of the Islamic Awakening which swept across the Arab countries seven years ago and deposed dictators in a number of countries in North Africa and the Middle East.
"The ill-wishers are seeking to paint a dark picture of Islam based on the Wahhabi model by revitalizing the pre-Islamic ignorance, which allowed such reprehensible atrocities as the beheading of children, the immolation of men, and assaulting women,” Velayati said.
On Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry called for the trial and prosecution of those who created and sponsored Daesh after the chief commander of the Quds Force announced the complete defeat of the Takfiri terrorist group.
"Today with the total defeat of the illusory Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, it has been proved once again that terrorism and the ideological, financial, political and military sponsors of this divisive phenomenon are doomed to failure,” the ministry said in a statement.
"These sponsors should be put on trial in international courts and be held accountable before the consciences of vigilant nations over their crimes, massacre, destructions and displacement of millions of innocent and defenseless people,” it added.
The statement said the region and the world are standing at a "large historical turn,” calling for no effort to be spared in supporting "the courageous fight of the resistance forces in their battle and contributing honestly to any collective measures aimed at establishing regional and international peace, stability and security.”