- Ahmed Kuftaro
Ahmed Muhammad Amin Kuftaro (December
1915 -September 1 ,2004 ) was theGrand Mufti ofSyria , the highestSunni Muslim religious official in that nation.Biography
He was born in
Damascus , the son ofKurd ish theologianMohammed Amin Kuftaro , whose position as head of theNaqshbandi Sufi tariqa he inherited. He was a founding member of theLeague of Muslim Ulemas . He becameMufti ofDamascus in 1946, Grand Mufti of Damascus in 1958, and Grand Mufti of theSyrian Arab Republic in 1964.He was an advocate of inter-religious dialogue. He was invited to many countries around the world as an unofficial ambassador of
Islam . These visits culminated in 1985 with a visit to thePope inRome . Even in his later years, as his health began to wane, he made a point of traveling around the world to speak on Islam. He met with theRev. Sun Myung Moon in 1990 and gave him a signed copy of theQuran .Kuftaro had twelve children from the same wife. He first visited the
USA in 1966, giving lectures oninter-faith dialogue .He died of a heart attack and was buried at
Abu Nur , the conservative Damascus quarter where he worked in one of the city's larger mosques.External links
* [http://kuftaro.org/ Kuftaro website]
* [http://www.islamicamagazine.com/content/view/87/61/ Obituary for Kuftaro in Islamica Magazine]
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