President al-Assad: Line should be drawn between fanaticism and religious faith

President Bashar al-Assad said the Syrians are quite aware of the truth about the situation in their own country, which opens up new prospects for religious work for drawing a line between subversive fanaticism and genuine faith.
The President’s comments came during his meeting with a delegation of Muslim and Christian clergymen who are taking part in the Religious Endowments (Awqaf) Ministry’s annual conference which kicked off in Damascus on Sunday.
Genuine religious faith, said the President, is underpinned by ethics, amity, cooperation and respecting the other as diametrically opposed to “subversive fanaticism”.

He underlined religious clergymen’s significant role in enhancing national reconciliations and disseminating a culture of dialogue among the Syrian people.
The President said such meetings carry great connotations on the national and historic levels as they reflect the unity and cohesion of the Syrian society which is rich in religious and ethnic components, attributing to it Syria’s epic steadfastness against the fierce campaign targeting it.
The participants, for their part, voiced confidence that Syria will remain a mosaic of cultural diversity that will be preserved by the Syrian people’s steadfastness and rejection of takfiri thoughts that are alien to the Syrian society.
At the end of the meeting, Endowments Minister Mohammad Abdul Sattar al-Sayyed handed over to President al-Assad, on behalf of participants in the conference, a draft of “Fadila (Virtue)” project, the key topic on the conference’s agenda.