Posted by yusuf Islam The hostage-takers of children in Beslan, North Ossetia, were Muslims. Those responsible for the attacks on residential towers in Riyadh and Osama bin Laden is a Muslim. The majority of those who manned the What a pathetic record. What an abominable "achievement." Does all These images, when put together or taken separately, are shameful and For it would be easy to cure ourselves if we realize the seriousness Let us listen to Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the sheikh - the Qatar-based This ailing sheikh, in his last days, with two daughters studying in How could this sheikh face the mother of the youthful Nick Berg, who In a different era, we used to consider the extremists, with At that time, the mosque used to be a haven, and the voice of religion Then came the neo-Muslims. An innocent and benevolent religion, whose We can't call those who take schoolchildren as hostages our own. We cannot tolerate in our midst those who abduct journalists, murder We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that We cannot redeem our extremist youths, who commit all these heinous *Abdel Rahman al-Rashed is general manager of Al-Arabiya news channel.
on March 11, 2006, 1:23 pm
59.94.100.100
It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is
equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists
are Muslims.
The other hostage-takers and subsequent murderers of the Nepalese chefs
and workers in Iraq were also Muslims. Those involved in rape and murder
in Darfur, Sudan, are Muslims, with other Muslims chosen to be their
victims.
Khobar were Muslims.
suicide bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses and buildings,
all over the world, were Muslim.
this tell us anything about ourselves, our societies and our culture?
degrading. But let us start with putting an end to a history of denial.
Let us acknowledge their reality, instead of denying them and seeking to
justify them with sound and fury signifying nothing.
of our sickness. Self-cure starts with self-realization and confession.
We should then run after our terrorist sons, in the full knowledge that
they are the sour grapes of a deformed culture.
radical Egyptian cleric - and hear him recite his fatwa about the
religious permissibility of killing civilian Americans in Iraq. Let us
contemplate the incident of this religious sheikh allowing, nay even
calling for, the murder of civilians.
"infidel" Britain, soliciting children to kill innocent civilians.
was slaughtered in Iraq because he wanted to build communication towers
in that ravished country? How can we believe him when he tells us that
Islam is the religion of mercy and peace while he is turning it into a
religion of blood and slaughter?
nationalist or leftist leanings, a menace and a source of corruption
because of their adoption of violence as a means of discourse and their
involvement in murder as an easy shortcut to their objectives.
used to be that of peace and reconciliation. Religious sermons were warm
behests for a moral order and an ethical life.
verses prohibit the felling of trees in the absence of urgent necessity,
that calls murder the most heinous of crimes, that says explicitly that
if you kill one person you have killed humanity as a whole, has been
turned into a global message of hate and a universal war cry.
civilians, explode buses; we cannot accept them as related to us,
whatever the sufferings they claim to justify their criminal deeds.
These are the people who have smeared Islam and stained its image.
terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive
monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women.
crimes, without confronting the sheikhs who thought it ennobling to
reinvent themselves as revolutionary ideologues, sending other people's
sons and daughters to certain death, while sending their own children to
European and American schools and colleges.
This article first appeared in the London-based pan-Arabic newspaper
Al-Sharq Al-Awsat.
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