On a hot summer day in Baghdad, a group of academics, civil activists, clergymen and leaders of Iraq's various religious groups gathered to launch the Institute for the Study of Religious Diversity, the first of its kind in the Middle East.

The Baghdad-based Masarat, a nonprofit organization focusing on minorities, collective memory studies and interfaith dialogue, launched the new institute, in cooperation with a host of universities and civil rights groups, on July 2. Masarat has published many books on Iraq's minorities and has won international prizes for its promotion of civil rights.

Religious minorities' representatives described the institute's launch as a "historic step." The institute will be a pioneer in the region, teaching the tenets of various minority faiths, including Mandaeanism, Yazidism, Baha'ism and Christianity, to Muslims.

"It was my pleasure that the institute's first constituent conference [is] held in Baghdad, the city of religions, diversity and peaceful coexistence," said Sheikh Amer al-Nimrawi, a Sunni clergyman and the president of the Assembly of Iraq's Moderate Scholars. "This meeting represents the mosaic of Iraq's ethnic and religious groups. May God help us all and take our hands for the good of all mankind."