Abu Dhabi: The Sawab Centre and the Al Azhar Observatory for Combating Extremism launched a new joint campaign on their social media platforms in commemoration of the Prophet’s (PBUH) Birthday and under the hashtag of #MercyToTheWorlds.
The two-day campaign was run in Arabic and English across all of their social media platforms on Wednesday and Thursday.
The campaign highlighted the words and deeds of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), which epitomise the values of mercy, tolerance and coexistence to spread love and peace among people of different faiths and ethnic backgrounds in complete contradiction to the hate speech of extremist groups, which provoke violence, division, and animosity.
The campaign also sought to unmask extremists’ deliberate distortion of Islamic texts by placing them out of their proper context to justify their terrible crimes against humanity and their desperate attempts to recruit youth.
The campaign is the culmination of the efforts of the Sawab Centre and Al Azhar Observatory to cooperate in confronting and countering extremism through positive campaigns that primarily target youth to protect them and raise awareness on the dangers of the extremists’ twisted doctrines. It also presented examples from the life of the Prophet to urge youth to love their homelands and to dedicate their lives to serving them to enhance the welfare of the people, the stability of communities, and the prosperity and development of their countries.
This is the Sawab Centre’s 22nd proactive social media campaign either to directly counter terrorist messages or present positive alternatives to their violent and divisive ideologies. Other Sawab campaigns have focused on terrorism’s devastation of families, communities and ancient civilisations, as well as positive themes such as the important contributions of women in preventing and resisting extremism and in advancing their societies.
Since its launch in July 2015, the Sawab Centre has encouraged the voices of governments, communities, and individuals to engage proactively to counteract online extremism. Over this time, the centre has given voice to the millions of people around the world who oppose Daesh and other extremist groups, while supporting efforts to expose terrorist groups’ brutality and criminal nature.
