The scholar enjoined all and sundry, especially his fellow scholars, to contribute to strengthening peace and stability, adding that “we should jealously safeguard the prevailing peace”.
“There can be no decent religious practice without the existence of peace,” he told a congregation of thousands of people that graced the village’s annual ‘Gamo’ on Saturday.
He added: “We are able to gather here to discuss our religion and say our five daily prayers thanks to the relative peace we have in this country. There can be no development in the absence of peace. So, we all should endeavour to maintain peace.
“We have seen the havoc instability has caused in other countries. We should therefore, more than ever before, be motivated to safeguard the peace we have. Let us pray for peace and stability. Let us pray for Allah to spare us from the chaos that has befallen other countries.”
The Mauritania and Saudi trained scholar, also took time to respond to claims by a section of scholars, who say that Islam forbids ‘Gamo’.
Ceesay said: “A Muslim should not say that ‘Gamo’ is un-Islamic. If ‘Gamo’ is forbidden, how about the ‘Muhadara’ in Arabia? All over the world, people do meet and a scholar is identified to speak on a topic. That is called Islamic conference. Here, we call it Gamo. The problem in this country is inadequate knowledge of the religion. If there’s adequate knowledge, we would not be listening to those kinds of people. They are saying this is ‘haram’, that is haram, and they have made everybody a Kafir [a non-believer].
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