Mehmet Görmez: No inter-faith dialogue!

Mavi Karadeniz TV /  December 31^st, 2008

ADNAN OKTAR: The Jews are our brothers, devout Jews are very dear to us. Devout Christians are very dear to us, our dear brothers. We can marry their women, eat their food and do business with them. We can be their guests, and they can be ours. We can chat and talk. We do our best to call them to Islam, but always with love and kindness and the words of the Qur’an, without offending them. And they can tell us their own ideas but we will also tell them our ideas. That is what I call dialogue.

KANAL 55 (SAMSUN) / AUGUST, 2008

ADNAN OKTAR: This is how I see it. I have a Christian neighbor, for example, and I invite him to dinner. I ask him how he is and how things are going. Do you have any problems? Are you living in peace? Can I be of help at all? I ask if he has enough to eat and if he needs anything. Christian, Armenian, Protestant, Orthodox, whatever, it makes no difference. I am talking about speaking with and talking to them. That is what I mean by dialogue. That is how it was in the time of our Prophet (saas). One of the concubines of our Prophet (saas) was a Christian, as you know. He took a Christian concubine. And he had Christian and Jewish neighbors. Our Prophet (saas) would eat and talk and be friends with them. In that sense, that is what I mean by dialogue. 

The head of the Religious Affairs Department, Mehmet Görmez, said on the subject of the debate over inter-faith dialogue on his way to Kazakhstan to take part in the  Fourth Celestial and Universal Faiths Congress, “There can be no dialogue between faiths, but there can be dialogue between men of religion. I mean, two members of different faiths can sit down and talk about things to do with the environment or war, and that is dialogue. But you cannot have dialogue between faiths. Religions cannot be turned into one another. But religious figures can discuss events.” Mehmet Görmez also said that the establishment of a Council of Religious Leaders might be useful in resolving some global problems. “The important thing is to set aside enmities, misunderstandings and exclusion and be able to sit around the table.”