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HE Ali Gomaa the Grand Mufti of Egypt, as Co-Chair of the C-1 World Dialogue with the Anglican Bishop of London, the Right Rev. & Hon. Dr. Richard Chartres, will speak at the release of the 2009 Annual Dialogue Report in Cairo, Monday. In commending the Report, which is aimed to give an overview of the state of Muslim West Dialogue, the Grand Mufti comments, “Establishing and maintaining peace is one of the most urgent issues of our time” and that “Action is clearly vital....but it must be based on knowledge if it is to be effective. It is important to explore and establish the factors that are shaping the course of Muslim-West relations, how opinions are changing over time and why.”

Bishop Richard Chartres says that this Report, “comes at a time of new impetus in relations with the Muslim world, stimulated by the recent historic speech in Cairo by President Obama. Such a time calls for new action but also for good evidence upon which to ground it.” And the data does show that positive change is indeed possible. For example, the percentage of people who support Bin Laden and Al Quaeda is falling in a number of Muslim countries.

Yet there is reasons for concern too as we have to ask why it is that 52% of Spaniards have an unfavourable view of Muslims and even 60 % of those surveyed in Japan and 54% in India and 55% in China (55%). Again it is troubling that the percentage of those surveyed holding an unfavourable view of Christians is so high in Turkey (74%), Pakistan (69%) China (55%) while even in Egypt the figure is 45%.. Even more disturbing is the direction of some changes, In Turkey while in 2004 only 44% of people were unfavourable towards Christianity, in 2008 it was 74%. Why is this and what needs to be done to improve these figures?

Part of the work of the C-1 Foundation is to provide the data with which to assess progress and what works in terms of improving Muslim-West relations, in the words of Bishop Chartres: “There can be no doubt that the more facts and data we can gather upon which to base future initiatives the more confident we can be of achieving the positive goal of a long term and sustainable improvement in Muslim-West relations that we need.“

In further support of these goals the report explores the basis for common action that is provided by the Common Word initiative and the two great commandments namely that we “Love God and our Neighbour” and also highlights the recent Muscat Manifesto set out By Professor David Ford of Cambridge which urges that people of different faiths unite in searching for Wisdom.

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