There are fourteen Muslim-majority countries including Egypt, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Turkey, Morocco, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bangladesh, Jordan, Palestine, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Albania, and Indonesia, who rejoiced to have their most treasured guest among them. These journeys, as the late Pope Francis himself explained, were pilgrimages, “of dialogue and encounter with (our) Muslim brothers and sisters.” We are all descendants of the same father, Abraham. Pope Francis wanted to follow in the footsteps of Saint Francis of Assisi, who brought a “message of peace and fraternity” to Sultan al-Malik al-Kami 800 years ago. St. Francis of Assisi went to Damietta, Egypt, in 1219 to meet with the Sultan, the Muslim leader of the Holy Land at that time. It was an experience that began and ended in peace. In a similar way, Pope Francis has reached out to the members of other religious traditions in order to achieve peace among their members, especially the Muslims. Pope Francis practiced what he preached: “God has created all human beings equal in rights, duties and dignity, and God calls them to live together as brothers and sisters.”

He continued the work of the Second Vatican Council, especially regarding Nostra Aetate (the declaration on dialogue with all world religions). Pope Francis reached out to many leaders of the world’s religions, especially Muslim people in leadership roles. One extraordinary example is Pope Francis’s meeting with His Eminence Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Muhammad Al-Tayyeb, Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar University and Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque. The century-old Al-Azhar University in Cairo is one of the most important centers of learning in the Sunni Muslim world, and Sheikh Al-Tayyeb is one of its most important religious scholars. During this meeting in 2019, Pope Francis co-authored with Sheikh Al-Tayyeb The Human Fraternity Document for World Peace and Coexistence (the so-called “Abu Dhabi Declaration”). He also most recently published, with other leaders of the Muslim faith, another document entitled the Joint Declaration of Istiqlal 2024: Fostering Religious Harmony for the Sake of Humanity. This was Pope Francis’s attempt to implement the main objective of Nostra Aetate, that is, that Christian and Muslim people together “work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all humankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom (Nostra Aetate, 3).”

In his life and writings Saint Francis of Assisi proclaimed that the mercy of God was the heart of the Gospel. God led Saint Francis to recognize that mercy was discovered primarily among the poor (people with leprosy), within his own fraternity of brothers around him, within the larger Christian community, with those who were not people of the Christian faith, and with all creatures (The Canticle of Creatures). With the same profound insight as Saint Francis and Saint John Paul II before him, Pope Francis understood that the universal circle of mercy embraces all creation—calling both human and non-human creatures to live in harmony and peace.

Pope Francis spent his entire pontificate declaring the same message of mercy. One of the most remarkable events of his experiences with Muslim people took place on Holy Thursday of 2013 at the beginning of his pontificate. He washed the feet of a female Muslim prisoner in Rome. This simple, humble gesture of mercy and compassion proclaimed to the world more than words could ever convey.