Tehran: Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri stressed that the greatest danger facing the Islamic world today was not the diversity of religious interpretations, but the transformation of differences into division, sectarianism, and conflict. In a message to the International Islamic Unity Conference in Tehran, delivered on his behalf by Tyre and Jabal Amel Mufti Sheikh Hassan Abdullah, Berri said Islamic unity should not seek to eliminate differences.
According to National News Agency - Lebanon, Berri emphasized that the unity needed is to disagree without fighting, to be diverse without becoming divided, and to seek common ground that makes diversity a source of strength rather than a pretext for division. He warned against allowing religious differences to become sectarian fanaticism, politics to turn into sedition, or religion to become an instrument of conflict.
Berri highlighted the responsibility of scholars and intellectuals to open channels of dialogue rather than deepen divisions. He called for a renewed approach to unity that safeguards human dignity and the sanctity of life, recognizes disagreement as a right, and dialogue as a duty, while rejecting excommunication and sectarian strife.
He invoked the legacy of Imam Musa Al-Sadr, who viewed Islamic denominations as sources of enrichment rather than "trenches of conflict" and worked to build bridges among communities. Addressing regional developments, Berri said Palestine and Jerusalem represented a test of the conscience of the Islamic world, while referring to the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon and the US-Israeli confrontation with Iran.
Berri paid tribute to the late Iranian leader Ali Khamenei and expressed support for Mojtaba Khamenei. He called for moving "from conferences on unity to building unity, from talking about rapprochement to institutions of rapprochement, from statements of solidarity to projects of cooperation, and from managing disputes to properly managing differences."
He emphasized that this approach should extend to education, media, culture, and religious and social institutions, with a focus on raising a generation that does not inherit hatred or view those of different denominations as enemies. Berri concluded by stating that Islamic unity is achievable but requires courage, stressing the need to place common interests above narrow calculations and transform diversity into enrichment and differences into dialogue.