After former President Khatami made his international debut at the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly in 1998, he explained why he had called for a dialogue of civilizations at an informal press breakfast, as reported by Robin Wright in "Dreams and Shadows:"
"At the end of the twentieth century...what is the legacy of humanity? In his famous book The Republic, Plato says, 'What is justice?'" Khatami opined to a group of journalists who had all come to talk about issues a bit more pressing than ancient Greek philosophy.
"The Koran says that the aim of the prophethood was defense of justice and equality. One can interpret the same meaning from the Bible and the Torah. But twenty-five hundred years after Plato, two thousand years after Jesus, and fourteen hundred years after Mohammed, we still ask: What is meant by justice? The very fact that humanity has not reached a united definition means we are still in a period of trial and error. We need to have a dialogue among civilizations about the issue of justice. We must make efforts to have greater equality and justice for all humanity." (2008, pp. 304-305).
Is there not an inference in Surah 1:7 that the Siratal Mustaqim -the path of those upon whom God has bestowed Grace - that all 124,000 prophets of the past were proactively engaged in defining and in seeking Justice and Equality in order to re-create a moral society?
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