Awqaf Minister Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa, Grand Mufti Shawqi Allam, Youths and Sports Minister Khaled Abdel Aziz and Culture Minister Abdel Wahed el Nabawy opened the first conference of the tolerance and modesty forum on Monday.

The one-day event will address means to renew the religious discourse and is expected to issue a national document in this regard to counter terrorism.

At the opening, Awqaf Minister Gomaa stressed the importance of cooperation between religious, cultural and intellectual figures to face the danger of terrorism under a balanced religious, cultural and social discourse.

The forum will float new ideas to develop the religious discourse, he said, urging participating scholars to exert their utmost to rectify distorted thoughts and spread tolerance and co-existence values.

The ministry is also working on countering atheism, extremism and deconstructive ideas, he said.

The ministry has issued booklets to face the ideas of Bahaism and Shiism, while giving special attention to training preachers on spreading moderate thought, he said.