The head of state: “We have full unity among Muslims in Azerbaijan regardless of which part of the Muslim religion they belong to – Shia or Sunni”

“Our strong belief in what we are doing for the development of the country and also giving messages to society that religion must be separated from the state. We are Muslims in Azerbaijan, there are also Christians, Jews and representatives of other religions. But religion should not interfere in political life. We do not understand when somebody talks about political Islam. This is not something which is common in Azerbaijan. One of our advantages as an independent country in this geography and one of our achievements is that we have managed to strengthen the secular character of our society, at the same time with full respect for the religious feelings of all our citizens”. President Ilham Aliyev has said at the international conference under the motto “Along the Middle Corridor: Geopolitics, Security and Economy” held at ADA University on November 25.

The head of state has emphasized that and what we are doing in Karabakh now, apart from the airports you have mentioned, is the restoration of mosques, including the mosque in Shusha, which was illegally “restored” but was actually damaged by one Iranian company: “And that was a big scandal because when we invited the Iranian ambassador to our Foreign Ministry saying that you have no right to do it, you have no right to touch it, and you have no right, first of all, to visit Shusha, which is part of Azerbaijan, without our agreement. And that was again a sign of solidarity with Armenians who destroyed 65 mosques in Karabakh and Zangazur out of 67. And one in Aghdam, which you will see. They used it as a stable for cows and pigs and also the minaret they used as an observation point to see Azerbaijani troops. The mosque in Shusha was so-called “renovated” to demonstrate the so-called “tolerance” of Armenians – which looked renovated– and they called it a Persian mosque. First, mosques don’t have nationalities. You cannot call a mosque Persian or any other. This is part of our history and none of us forgot that. Therefore, total separation of religion from political life – this is our model and this model proves to be successful”.

President Ilham Aliyev has noted that we have full unity among Muslims in Azerbaijan regardless of which part of the Muslim religion they belong to – Shia or Sunni: “We have a unique experience of having a unity prayer in our mosque when Shia and Sunni Muslims pray together. And how can we separate if all of them are Azerbaijanis? The same blood, the same ethnicity. And this is probably the last question probably to be asked in Azerbaijan – you know our country very well. We are all Muslims and there is no division between us. And those who want to divide the Muslim world, they are doing great damage to all Muslims. The Muslim world must be united. And what are we doing? We are contributing to that by our efforts, by our initiatives, by our statements and by our policy. Therefore, I think that in today’s world traditional alliances can grow bigger”.