Muslim scholars have told the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East that Islam promotes respect for Christians and Jews and that the entire region will suffer if Christians depart.

Muhammad al-Sammak, Sunni adviser to the chief mufti of Lebanon and secretary general of Lebanon’s Christian-Muslim Committee for Dialogue, and Ayatollah Seyed Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad Ahmadabadi, a Shia professor at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, spoke at the gathering at the invitation of the Pope.

Mr al-Sammak said Christians are not the only people suffering in the Middle East or tempted to emigrate.
“We share our sufferings. We live them in our social and political delays, in our economic and developmental regression, in our religious and confessional tension,” he said.