Moslems told to cooperate with the West

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Religious Affairs Tarmizi Taher said Islam and the West need to learn from one another and forge better cooperation in an effort to create world peace.

"The West needs to learn to understand the spiritual wealth of Islam while Moslems should learn from the West's advanced technology," Tarmizi was quoted by Antara as saying at the opening of a conference on Islam at Leiden University, the Netherlands, on Tuesday.

The first four-day international conference on "Islam facing the 21st century" will conclude tomorrow and is being attended by 150 participants from 16 countries, including Morocco's Minister of Religious Affairs Abdulkadir Dagiri.

The initiative for the conference came from Indonesia, Morocco and the Netherlands.

The Indonesian delegation to the conference includes prominent Moslem scholars Aswab Mahasin, Attho Mudzar, Azzyumardi Azra, Malik Fajar, Nurcholish Madjid, Taufik Abdullah and Zamachsjari Dhofier.

Speakers include Nasr Abu-Zaid from Egypt, Riffat Hassan from the Unites States, Ali Kettani from Morocco and Mitsuo Nakamura from Japan.

Indonesia will be the host of the second conference in 1998 and Morocco that of the third conference in 2000.

In his speech, Tarmizi elaborated on how both the West and Islam have helped one another. It is undeniable, he said, that the last two centuries have been a time of glory for the West.

"However, the West's golden age cannot be separated from the grand Islamic civilization which developed 500 years ago," he said.

"Wars and violence involving Moslems in many parts of the world, however, have caused Islamic countries to lag far behind the West in their development," he said. (31)