Abdullah II of Jordan Quotes
I look at Jerusalem as being a beacon for the three monotheistic religions.
Abdullah II of Jordan. Interview by Jeffrey Goldberg. "The Modern King in the Arab Spring." The Atlantic, 19 Mar. 2013.
In another of this great Pope’s achievements, he became the first Pontiff to pray in a synagogue and reversed the centuries of Catholic anti-Semitism and the passivity of the WWII papacy in condemning the holocaust. Jesus was not only Jewish but a rabbi. Most of the earliest apostles and early Popes were themselves Jews and in the early church many of the Christians viewed themselves as a particular and inspired sect of Judaism. Early church fathers argued over whether new converts who had been pagans had to be circumcised and eat only kosher food as required by Jewish law.
Munir was a strong advocate for civilian control over the military and as exposed many military atrocities and disappearances. He was poisoned on a Garuda Airlines flight to Holland where he was exposing more of the human rights violations of the Indonesian Military.
The people of the Book refers to Jews and Muslims. This passage of the Koran is used to justify ecumenism with Muslims integrated with Jews and Christians. The Koran consists of Muhammed’s sayings, and he himself had opinions about Jews and Christians that differed from time to time. So although this passage signals a tolerant religion, in other places Muhammed preached violence against the people of the Book. At first Muhammed and his followers expected to see the people of the Book adopt Islam as their religion. When they did not, relations deteriorated somewhat.
Muslims had engaged in violent demonstrations to insist on more Sharia law and the curtailment of behavior that the Muslim Mullahs determined to be contrary to Sharia and Islam. In Nigeria Muslim violence and intimidation had at the time already caused one of the Nigerian states to adopt Sharia instead of civil law. Many Muslims continued the violence in order to spread the adoption of Islamic law. In most counties, there were threats of law enforcement crackdowns to curtail the Muslim violence and attacks on Christians and other religions. In Nigeria however, the Christians under Akinola’s leadership made this not so subtle veiled threat to retaliate. It seems to have worked in the short run although the religious tensions remained very high and no one knew whether or not religious violence or even war would break out.
Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein is King of Jordan, reigning since 7 February 1999. As a member of the Hashemite dynasty, the royal family of Jordan since 1921, he is a 41st-generation direct descendant of Muhammad.
