Religion plays decisive role in peace

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani says religious leaders should prevent measures that by marginalizing religion threaten world peace and stability.

“The role of religious leaders in the world’s current cultural and political atmosphere is very decisive,” Larijani said in a Tuesday meeting with the visiting Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Khanania Dinkha IV.

Larijani referred to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the September 11, 2001 attacks as two incidents which created a “dangerous school of thought.”

“Those who talked about crusades after the September 11 incident caused two destructive wars in the region and sought to cause a rift between the followers of divine religions,” Mehr News Agency quoted him as saying.

Larijani stressed that religious leaders should be careful with the “morbid” schools of thought which “threaten world peace.”

The top Assyrian cleric, for his part, said all divine religions lead humanity toward prosperity.

He also condemned the burning of the Holy Qur’an by some adventurists on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the US.