SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb has promised to pay a visit to Iraq soon, said Iraq’s Sunni endowment on Saturday.
Head of the Sunni Endowment Office Saad Kampash said he met with Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb during his visit to Egypt and handed him two official invitations from Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi and Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi to pay a visit to Iraq.
“The Sheikh of Al-Azhar promised to visit Iraq as soon as possible,” Kampash said in a statement.
He added that the Iraqi government had also invited Egyptian minister of endowments, the head of the supreme council for Islamic affairs and the Grand Mufti of Egypt to visit Iraq.
The invitations came shortly after Pope Francis paid a four-day historic visit to Iraq on March 5. Sheikh al-Azhar welcomed the pope’s visit to Iraq, saying “the message addresses those with goodwill and a living conscience, and restores humanity’s consciousness”.
During his trip, the first ever papal visit to Iraq, he toured four cities, including Mosul, the former Islamic State (ISIS) stronghold where vast areas still lie in ruins, telling Iraqis that “peace is more powerful than war”.
Iraqis welcomed the pope and said it was a chance for the world to see their perpetually crisis-hit nation in a new light.
Iraq suffers from chronic mismanagement, corruption and a steady level of violence often linked to rivalry between Iran and the United States in the region 18 years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
