Sensible Islamic voices... hopefully they'll get more publicity. It's at least pleasing to see moderates on both sides are genuinely overlapping to a large extent.
Hamza Yusuf, a leading Islamic scholar in the US, said: "Islam has been hijacked by a discourse of anger and a rhetoric of rage."
Mr Yusuf, who has advised the White House on the current crisis and is director of the California-based Zaytuna Institute, says that the perpetrators of violence are falsely using Islam to justify their actions.
"There is nothing Islamic about terrorism. To use violence against civilians to create terror is one the greatest crimes of Islam," said Mr Yusuf. He quoted the Prophet Mohammed, who said: "Beware of extremism, for it is that which killed the people before you."
A leading Muslim scholar, Yusef al-Qaradawi, issued a fatwa - which is an opinion of an Islamic scholar, based on Islamic law - immediately after the attacks, saying Osama Bin Laden could not call himself a Muslim.
Terrorism has also been rejected by the conservative sect of Islam in Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism, and the Saudi Government has issued an official fatwa rejecting suicide bombers
...
However, Mr Yusuf believes that the West also has an obligation to recognise Muslim grievances, and recognise what he calls the "moral ambiguities" of the current situation.
"Portraying the Taleban as evil is very stupid," he said.
"They are by-products of the Cold War. They have been flooded with weapons from the West, and they're as much victims as the Twin Tower victims." He describes Bin Laden as "frightening" but says "it is very real and understandable that such characters are emerging.
"There is a lot of humiliation and hurt pride in the Muslim world," he said.
news.bbc.co.uk |
