“Muslim prayer leaders in Turkey will this week use a sermon marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan to condemn terrorism and call for unity in the wake of four deadly bomb attacks in Istanbul.” This from Reuters.
“Anatolian news agency said on Sunday Turkey’s religious affairs directorate had revised the planned reading for the Eid al-Fitr feast in the light of the suicide bombings which killed more than 50 people over the last week.
“‘Terror, violence and anarchy have no connection whatsoever with Islam,’ the agency quoted the sermon as saying. ‘Our religion clearly outlaws any kind of anarchy, sedition, enmity, cruelty, torture, terror or violence.'”
Great. I hope they will accompany their statement with vigorous efforts in their community to counteract the radical Muslim understanding that their religion does indeed call for terror (against the enemies of the believers, cf. Sura 8:12 of the Qur’an) and violence (against Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims, cf. Suras 9:5 and 9:29). This belief is not founded on a few scattered verses of the Qur’an, but on an elaboration of theology and law that mandates (in the words of a legal manual approved by the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, Al-Azhar University in Cairo) “war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians . . . until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o9.8).
I hope the Turkish imams will acknowledge that jihad terrorists justify their actions using such doctrines, and renounce these doctrines definitively and absolutely.
Similarly, “Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has condemned the recent suicide bombings in Turkey which left 27 people dead and injured hundreds, saying the attacks tarnished Islam.”
There have been many suicide bombings before this. Might these condemnations coming from the Muslim world have to do with the Muslim victims of these particular bombings? Anyway, Abdullah said: “I am greatly saddened at the loss of so many innocent lives in the truck bomb attacks in Istanbul on Thursday. . . . Such attacks have also further tarnished the name of Islam which is a religion of peace.”
Same question for Abdullah: will you then renounce the doctrines of violent jihad against non-Muslims? Yes, the attacks in Istanbul killed Muslims, but they emanate from the same desire, stated many times in many places by radical Muslims: to institute Islamic law in secular Turkey and everywhere else they possibly can “” by force where necessary.