Muslim clerics speak out against terrorists

The Coffee Shop
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Muslim leaders condemn killers

David Smith
Sunday September 5, 2004
The Observer

Islamic leaders in the Middle East yesterday denounced the slaughter of children in Russia as ‘unIslamic’, as commentators asked unusually soul-searching questions about the region and terrorism.

Even the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s biggest Islamic group, condemned the bloody siege in Beslan. Its leader, Mohammed Mahdi Akef, said that kidnappings may be justified but killings are not. He added: ‘What happened is not jihad because Islam obligates us to respect the souls of human beings; it is not about taking them away.’

While some Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East have long supported fellow Muslims fighting in Chechnya, such was the barbarity of the hostage takers that few voices spoke in support of the actions in Ossetia. Egypt’s leading Muslim cleric, Grand Sheik Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, was quoted as saying during a Friday sermon: ‘What is the guilt of those children? Why should they be responsible for your conflict with the government? You are taking Islam as a cover and it is a deceptive cover; those who carry out the kidnappings are criminals, not Muslims.’

Ali Abdullah, an Islamic scholar in Bahrain who follows the ultra-conservative Salafi stream of Islam, also condemned the school attack as ‘unIslamic’. However, he insisted Muslims were not involved and revived an old conspiracy theory: ‘I have no doubt that this is the work of the Israelis, who want to tarnish the image of Muslims.’

But the reaction was overwhelmingly filled with revulsion. Abdulrahman al-Rashed wrote an article in the pan-Arab Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper under the headline: ‘The Painful Truth: All World Terrorists are Muslims!’

Al-Rashed said that Muslims will not be able to cleanse their image unless ‘we admit the scandalous facts… Our terrorist sons are an end-product of our corrupted culture. The picture is humiliating, painful and harsh for all of us.’

His extraordinary critique was echoed by Ahmed Bahgat, an Egyptian Islamist. Writing in the pro-government newspaper, Al-Ahram , he said hostage-takers in Russia and Iraq are only harming Islam. ‘If all the enemies of Islam united and decided to harm it… they wouldn’t have ruined and harmed its image as much as the sons of Islam have done by their stupidity, miscalculations and misunderstanding.’ Horrifying images of the dead and wounded students ‘showed Muslims as monsters who are fed by the blood of children and the pain of their families’.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1297664,00.html

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Looks like no one wants to touch this one with a ten foot pole. How come?

‘The Painful Truth: All World Terrorists are Muslims!’

Al-Rashed said that Muslims will not be able to cleanse their image unless ‘we admit the scandalous facts… Our terrorist sons are an end-product of our corrupted culture. The picture is humiliating, painful and harsh for all of us.’

To me, this is an interesting, important news story and one that has been lacking in US news. Thanks.

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I agree that all Muslims are not fanatics ready to get rid of American and Occidental evil. The problem with the perception to me is that some religious Islamic clerics condone this angry, violent, murderous behavior in the name of Jihad (holy war).

I’m not religious and my fear is that the Jihadists consider me an infadel and want to kill me unless I convert. Perhaps my fear in irrational, but the threat of death at the hands of religious fanatics in a country such as the USA that prides itself in religous freedom makes me very uneasy. I continue to think about the 3000 people who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11/01 at the hands of these “fanatics.”

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“unfortunately, christians forget really fast that more have died in the name of their religion . . .exactly like the catholic church did with heretics (lutherians, jews…) for centuries…not different…although what differs significantly are the means to kill…”

Not to nit pick, or anything, but do you think that analogy holds up after 600 YEARS!!! Do you think we might all get the benefit of a tiny bit of growth as a planet?

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Well it is a start, at least there is the begining of a voice. Here is a similar article from Kuwait about OBL and why there has been no fatwa called on OBL Former Kuwaiti Information Minister: Where are the Fatwas Against bin Laden? – ‘We Left the World with the Impression that the Arabs are All bin Laden’ http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD78104

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unfortunately, christians forget really fast that more have died in the name of their religion

Care to back that up, froggie?

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100,000 trials
8800 death by fire
6500 death during torture
90,000 condemned to prison
1 million asked to leave spain

apart from Torquemada, 35,000 death by fire for the inquisition…

this is just for Spain…want me to back it up more?

Yeah, you’re going to have to, don’t you think? For the sake of argument, we’ll go with those numbers. The total killed in the name of religion adds up to 50,300. Which sounds like a lot, but in the grand scheme of things. . . Not so much.

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Better. Now how many killed in the name of Islam throughout its history?

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That question is really intersting and probably would take a bit or research do you know anyone who already has that number?

I would be really interested in even a legitimate aproximation. I did find this site which is similar to the Iraqi body count site. I found it to be pretty interesting but it only goes back to Sept 11 of 2001 which is a short time but I put it in Excel because I couldn’t find a total and I came up with nearly 10,000 Deaths and over 24,000 “injured”! Over 1500 incidents listed since then.

This sums it up: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

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That question is really intersting and probably would take a bit or research do you know anyone who already has that number?

I could probably cobble something together, but I doubt it would be comprehensive. Besides, I still owe jhc a source for a statistic I threw out in another debate, so my “research” time right now is spoken for. :wink:

Anyway, I don’t really think the raw numbers are all that important. The important question is whether or not violence is consonant with the beliefs and teachings of a particular religion, as evidenced by the mass of evidence- the whole tradition, as it were, of that religion.

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Besides, I still owe jhc a source for a statistic I threw out in another debate, so my “research” time right now is spoken for. :wink:

And don’t you forget it! :wink:

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http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html

Here is a quick list of modern numbers.

One interesting fact is that Pinochet was placed in power by a CIA backed coup on Sept. 11, 1973. And the number of people he is accused of killing is ~3000.

Lets face it people suck in spite of religion not because of it.

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“I often get asked if Hiroshima/Nagasaki qualify as a massacre and genocide. I disagree. First of all, why only nuclear weapons? The carpet bombing of German cities and of Tokyo killed the same number of people. Second, Winston Churchill and Harry Truman did not start that war: they ended it. It is even debatable if these bombings killed or saved lives: Hiroshima probably saved a lot of Japanese lives, because a long protracted invasion like the one that took place in Germany would have killed a lot more people”

That’s from the website.

Frankly, the guy seems to have a pretty flexible definition of genocide. Hiroshima doesn’t qualify, but LBJ makes the list because of Viet Nam? Tokyo doesn’t count, but Pinochet’s 3000 victims do?

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“Care to back that up, froggie?”

More than 300,000 died in the Albegensian Crusade alone, and they didn’t have the technology to do it 3000+ at a time. Christianity has a lot for which they must answer.

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Interesting list of numbers. And congratulations to the US that they have absolutely no record on genocide!

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“the guy seems to have a pretty flexible definition of genocide.”

genocide - the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.

I guess it is all about motivation.

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“as I said, I stuck to crusade N1…”

    • I seem to recall the Albegensian Crusade (your neck o’ the woods) was the most severe, in terms of numbers. And it was related to the Pope trying to snuff out his own guys (the Templars). But then that particular pope was a puppet, wasn’t he? Some interesting reading out there on the subject, my favorite: The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.

“glad to know someone knows about the others…these were really interesting times.”

    • Indeed they were. There certainly were fewer freedoms in the days before TV and radio!!
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“where are Hiroshima, Nagazaki and Tokyo’s bombings?”

They’re not on the list. Pearl Harbor belongs, acts of war committed subsequent and in response to Pearl Harbor fail to qualify as “terrorism.”

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http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39874

Interesting.

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"Pearl Harbor belongs, acts of war committed subsequent and in response to Pearl Harbor fail to qualify as “terrorism.”

Pearl Harbor is questionable since it was an act of war committed by one nation state against another using military forces against the opponents military forces. I understand why people lump it under the terrorism category, but personally, I would not.