H.E. Koutoub Moustapha Sano, Secretary General of the Academy, participated in the 9th International Conference of the World Fatwa Authorities, entitled “Fatwa and Ethical Construction in a Rushing World” held on Monday and Tuesday, 23-24 Muharam 1446, corresponding to 30-29 July 2024, in Cairo.

His Excellency delivered a speech at the opening session on behalf of the Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which reads as follows: “From where the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Secretariat General of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy are based, Jeddah, Gate of the Two Holy Mosques, I convey to you the greetings of H.E. Mr. Hussein Taha Ibrahim, Secretary General of the OIC, the greetings of H.E. Sheikh Dr. Saleh bin Abdullah bin Humaid, President of the Academy, and the greetings of the Ummah’s scholars” He then expressed the OIC and its organs’ thanks and gratitude to H.E. President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, for his generous patronage of this conference, as well as to his government, and to great people of Egypt for their warm hospitality, praying to Allah to perpetuate stability and prosperity upon them.

His Excellency spoke about the importance of this conference in light of the rapid developments around the world, “This conference is being held at a time when the world is witnessing developments in thought and behavior, successive changes in concepts and premises, escalating changes in attitudes and scales, confusing challenges in the world of values, ideas, and principles, and above all, it is experiencing a fierce struggle between right and wrong, light and darkness, mercy and cruelty, and justice and injustice, which has led to the outbreak of hellish wars and bloody conflicts that continue to claim the lives of innocent women and children…The steadfastness of the Ummah today, as peoples, societies, and countries facing all these types of tragedies and catastrophes, is by rallying its people around ethics and morals, which are the greatest foundation for development, renaissance, and progress.”

His Excellency explained how high morals had a massive impact on the conversion of people into Islam and the peace of the world. He said, “Ask history, and history is the best witness that our authentic religion was not spread by sword or bullets, but by this great unique value that made people in the east and west enter the religion of Allah in droves. History is the best witness that the civilization under which humanity was once happy and tolerance and cooperation spread throughout it was based on high morals and good character. Ask history, and history is the best witness that civilizations that rose and then collapsed and disappeared were all caused by the decline of morals because it is the spirit that gives civilizations strength and immunity, and its collapse leads to the loss of that strength and immunity.”

His Excellency stressed that ethics and morals are “today threatened more than ever before, they are being mocked everywhere, and you have seen events of the Paris Olympics which reflects the moral decay that affected the image of Jesus Christ, PBUH. Yes, the collapse of the value of morality in the contemporary world order is what made the world today watch in cold blood as the children of Palestine are being murdered and starved at the hands of the Zionists. It is the fragility of the status of this value in the hearts of those who control the dominated world that has made the free world watch insensitively as the free women of Palestine are subjected to violation and aggression. Indeed, it is the lack of this value in the minds of the arrogant people on earth that has made the poor, wretched world watch the suffering of the elders of Palestine from all kinds of trials, tribulations, and displacement. Indeed, the absence of this value within Zionist attackers is what made them and persist in bombing hospitals, places of worship, universities and schools, and destroying infrastructure facilities on the sick, infirm and elderly day and night.”

His Excellency then said, “The OIC renews its call to the Ummah and the free world to hasten to put an end to the abhorrent occupation and brutal injustice that occupied Palestine has been facing for decades at the hands of Zionists who have been stripped of all meanings of humanity, mercy, and justice. It renews its call to international organizations and institutions, as well as Al-Azhar, to cooperate and show solidarity in tackling the challenges that surround values and principles in the modern time by promoting high morals in the hearts of young generations and by strengthening these high morals in schools and university curricula and activities.”

His Excellency concluded: “The OIC congratulates Egypt’s leadership and people, represented by the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta, on this timely and blessed conference and sincerely calls on the world’s fatwa boards and authorities to enhance awareness on high morals by highlighting its status, centrality, and importance in the advancement of nations, the progress of peoples, and the achievement of stability, development, and progress. Be that as it may, the OIC is confident that Allah’s promise is inevitably coming, that His clear victory for His believing servants is inevitable and that colonization, oppression, and tyranny will soon disappear. On that day, the believers will rejoice in the victory of the Almighty, whoever He wills, but most people do not know.”

Finally, His Excellency closed his speech by reciting a selected poem of Poet Ahmed Shawqi, as follows: May Allah have mercy on you, Prince of Poets and Sage of Eloquence. How true is what you understood and spoke:

Your character shapes your fate;

Straighten your morals and your soul will be straight.

A nation cannot stand if morals decay;

When they are lost, mourn the day.

If people’s morals fall apart,

Build no more; they’ve lost their heart.

You laid a foundation, strong and sure,

But they betrayed it, so it endures no more.

Once revered, now stripped of awe,

For morals are what command respect and law.

When morals guide, hands reach the stars;

People thrive by the light of their guiding stars.

Nations last while morals stay;

If they vanish, nations fade away.