More than 5,000 turn up at SQU for Oman Grand Mufti's talk

Muscat: Thousands of residents filled the Grand Hall of Sultan Qaboos University to listen to a talk by the Sultanate’s Grand Mufti, His Eminence Sheikh Ahmed bin Hamed Al Khalili.
At least 5,000 people attended the discussion with the Grand Mufti of the Sultanate on “Youth: between Proofs of Religion and Fallacies of Atheism.”
The Grand Mufti stressed the role of scholars and preachers in the Islamic world in guiding youth and clarifying all their suspicions and modern issues that need explanation.
Al Khalili discussed atheist issues, why people from different religions become atheists, and how atheists can rid themselves of the refusal to believe in God.
“In the Holy Quran, the word atheism is mentioned three times: in different meanings, such as inclination in beliefs, behaviour, and ethics. The worst form of atheism is the denial of the existence of God,” the Grand Mufti said.
When asked about why people turn to atheism, he said: “In distorted religious books, there is a conflict between religious teaching and scientific facts in addition to logic. When people discover that, they turn to atheism.”
“In Islam, the problem we have is when some scholars provide incorrect teachings that lead people to deny the religion and turn to atheism because it contradicts the Quranic tests and scientific teaching,” he added.
“In order to contain atheism, people should read the Holy Qur’an and understand the true meaning of it. Once they understand it, they should combine Quranic texts and compare it to the facts that occur in reality, Sheikh Al Khalili said.
“There is a book by Dr. Malirice Blicaille called ‘The Bible, the Quran and Science’ - he studied religious books and compare texts with scientific facts, I met Dr. Malirice in one of the conferences and after our discussion on what he wrote in his book, he asked me if I read the book of the Human in the Holy Quran, and after reading it, I found that he mentioned that many of the scientific facts discovered recently in the human body, had already been mentioned in the Holy Quran,” said Al Khalili.
Al Khalili was guided in this lecture by many verses of the Holy Qur’an and Hadiths.