MADRID — A conference convened by Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for the purpose of gathering together leaders of the world’s religions ended here yesterday with little sign as to whether the Saudi monarch’s efforts to counter religious extremism would continue.

The conference concluded on a sour note this afternoon as Christian and Jewish participants complained that the organizers, the Muslim World League, had too much control over the conference’s closing communiqué.

The three-day gathering in Madrid of more than 200 religious leaders was closely watched because it is the first time that a Saudi monarch had invited Jewish rabbis to attend a religious conference.

Abdullah, who began his reign in 2005, is using the conference as an opportunity to present himself to the West as the dominant leader in the Muslim world, observers of the political scene in Saudi Arabia say. But the most significant effect of the conference, the observers say, may ultimately be within Saudi Arabia, where the king’s example of personally greeting rabbis, priests, and leaders of other faiths, will be interpreted as a call to moderation directed to the most conservative among Saudi Arabia’s clergy, which is dominated by the Wahhabi movement of Sunni Islam.

In a move that foreshadowed the Madrid conference, Abdullah met with Pope Benedict XVI last year, a first for a reigning Saudi monarch.

After declaring that “Islam is a religion of moderation and tolerance” during the opening address of the conference Wednesday, Abdullah left Spain for a visit to Morocco and the conference continued without its sponsor.

The legacy of the conference will depend largely on what further steps, if any, Abdullah, who is now 84, takes to urge a reconciliation between the clerics of the Muslim world and their counterparts among Christians and Jews, participants say.

Abdullah has not announced any further plans to host or visit with non-Muslim religious leaders. Yet, the closing communiqué issued by the conference participants yesterday did leave him with another opening: to seek a hearing before the United Nations.

The communiqué, a four page final statement that condemns a list of woes ranging from terrorism to sexual promiscuity, also urges Abdullah to convene “a special UN session on dialogue” between religions.

The statement also declared:

“Terrorism is a universal phenomenon that requires unified international efforts to combat it in a serious, responsible and just way. This demands an international agreement on defining terrorism, addressing its root causes and achieving justice and stability in the world.”

And the statement urged people “to reject theories that call for the clash of civilizations.”

The statement does not mention any religions by name.

The final statement, which was read by an official with the Muslim World League, Abdul Rahman Al-Zaid, rankled several of the conference participants because it differed from an earlier agreed upon draft. Under pressure from a conference participant, William Vendley of Religions for Peace, a second version was subsequently drafted which attributed the communiqué to the “conveners” of the conference and not the participants, as the earlier version had.

One complaint, which two participants voiced on condition of anonymity, is that the communiqué called for the Muslim World League to select some of the delegates for the suggested upon United Nations conference on interfaith dialogue.

The major complaint of many participants was that the document appears to have been revised at some stage without the consent of members of a drafting committee. And the vast majority of participants never had a chance to review any version of the statement before Mr. Al-Zaid of the Muslim World League read it aloud.

“For us as participants from other religions this is not an acceptable procedure for adopting documents,” a Russian Orthodox priest participating in the conference, George Ryabykh, said.