In accordance with the Academy’s willingness to strengthen cooperation and partnership relations with scientific institutions and official bodies responsible for the Muslim religion in the countries of Muslim communities outside the Muslim world, the Secretary General of the Academy, Prof. Koutoub Moustapha Sano, met on Wednesday morning 12 Rajab 1442 corresponding to 24 February, 2021 with H.E. Mr. Mustafa Maharaj, Consul General and Special Envoy of France to the OIC at the headquarters of the Consulate General of the French Republic in Jeddah.

The Consul General welcomed the Secretary General and the accompanying delegation, and thanked him for his generous visit and expressed his joy with the beautiful memories and fruitful results of the first meeting he had with the Secretary General last December at the Academy’s headquarters. His Excellency confirmed his aspirations for broad cooperation and coordination relations with the Academy.

The Ambassador assured that the French government has full respect for the Muslim religion and the Muslim world, considering that Islam is the second most followed religion by French citizens, which shows the importance of Islam in France, stressing that there is no conflict between France and Islam.

For his part, the Secretary General of the Academy expressed his sincere thanks and gratitude to the Consul General and Special Envoy of France to the OIC for his warm welcome.

His Excellency also expressed the thanks and appreciation of the Academy for the efforts made by the Consul General and his assistants at the Consulate to strengthen friendship and respect between the Muslim world and the French Republic in general, and between the Academy and the authorities responsible for the islamic faith in France, noting in this regard the willingness of the Academy to strengthen communication and coordination with the Muslim community in France in order to support good initiatives aimed at building trust and good relations between Muslims and the authorities responsible for the Muslim faith.

His Excellency also expressed that the respect and appreciation that the Academy enjoys among Muslim communities around the world, as the first global jurisprudential reference for the Muslim world and Muslim communities, and that it should continue to work tirelessly and thoughtfully to help the Muslim community of France to adopt a genuine, correct and moderate understanding of Shariah provisions, in order to enable them to preserve their religious identity while fully respecting the contingencies of citizenship based on respect for the laws and regulations of public life and the relations between individuals and their societies, far from all forms of violence, extremism, rejection and hatred, as dictated by the Academy’s genuine scientific mission and religious responsibility to work on the communication with the authorities responsible Muslim religion in France, in order to face all forms of hate speech, discrimination, contempt for religious symbols and exclusion in accordance with the principles of the Republic that guarantees freedom of worship.

His Excellency took this opportunity to inform the Consul General and his assistants of the publication of the Academy’s strategic plan, which includes a precise formulation of its intellectual and scientific activities and programs for the next five years. He also informed him about the intellectual efforts that the Academy makes in the field of combating malicious rumors, especially those that fuel hatred and conspiracy theories, and widen the gap between the world and the West, pointing out that the Academy held a few days ago a Fiqh symposium to clarify the Shariah rulings regarding the use of vaccines against Covid 19, in response to malicious rumors and misinformation about the truth of vaccines and their effectiveness in combating the Covid 19 pandemic.

His Excellency concluded his speech by expressing his hope that the cooperation and coordination between the Academy and the authorities responsible for the islamic faith in France will result in strengthening trust and mutual respect between the Muslim world and the West, unifying efforts to combat all forms of extremism, violence, exclusion, hatred and contempt.

At the end of the meeting, the Consul General of France reiterated his thanks and appreciation to the Secretary General of the Academy, promising to organize for His Excellency a visit to France in the near future.