King Abdullah II, on Monday, handed awards to winners of King Abdullah II Award for World Interfaith Harmony Week in a ceremony attended by senior officials and royal family members

The World Interfaith Harmony Week was launched by His Majesty the King, who put it forward to the 56th session of the UN General Assembly, which unanimously adopted it in October 2010.

The Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought established this award in recognition of three activities or publications that best contribute to the promotion of World Interfaith Harmony Week, adopted by a UN resolution. The week is annually marked in the first week of February.

The winners came from three countries and they are Pakistan, Germany and Canada.

The interfaith week, which began after the UN unanimously adopted the initiative of His Majesty in October 2010, is an annual platform to raise awareness and understanding between followers of the different faiths and promote dialogue and goodwill, through conducting activities and events that spread this message.

The idea behind interfaith week comes from the pioneering work of the Common Word initiative that was launched in 2007 which called for Muslim and Christian scholars to engage in constructive dialogue based on shared values: the love of God and love of neighbor without religious prejudice, to strengthen the shared ideological religious ground, as these two messages are at the heart of all three major religions.
Source: Petra