An official meeting between Pope Francis and Imam Ahmed al Tayyeb will take place Monday at the Vatican, signaling a new step in Catholic-Muslim relations. “An audience between the Pope and the Great Imam of al Azhar is being prepared for Monday,” Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi told journalists May 19.
The Imam of al Azhar, currently Ahmed al Tayyeb, is considered by some Muslims to be the highest authority in Sunni Islam and oversees Egypt’s al-Azhar Mosque and the prestigious al-Azhar University attached to it. The meeting between Pope Francis and the Great Imam of al Azhar has been in the works since February, when Bishop Miguel Àngel Ayuso Guixot, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and the apostolic nuncio in Egypt, Archbishop Bruno Musarò, visited the al-Azhar Mosque and University.
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