Hawzah News Agency (Al Quds, Occupied Territories of Palestine) - "Ninety-seven people of 17 western nationalities have announced their voluntary conversion to Islam by repeating the Shahada [at the Al-Aqsa]," Sheikh Ekrima Said Sabri said in a statement issued this week.

According to the tenets of Islam, would-be converts must recite the Shahada, or "testimony", repeating in Arabic: "I bear witness that there is no God but Allah; I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah."

According to the former grand mufti, most of the westerners who have recently converted at the mosque hailed from the U.S., France, Germany, Britain and Finland.

"Islam is the religion of justice and tolerance," Sheikh Sabri declared. "It is a comprehensive religion; the distillation of all previous divine messages."

He went on to stress that, according to the Quran; conversion had to be done on a strictly voluntary basis.

"As God Almighty says: ‘There shall be no compulsion in [the acceptance of] the faith," Sheikh Sabri, who is also head of Jerusalem Al Quds’s Supreme Islamic Council, asserted, citing the holy book.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of people from around the world visit the iconic Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is located in occupied East Jerusalem.

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