Here again, Prince Hamzah asserts that “extremism” is rejected by Islam, but his terms remain undefined — and he ends up recommending that Muslims obey Sharia, which would presumably thus include the provisions regarding violent jihad and the oppression of non-Muslims. So what looks at first glance like a statement of Muslim moderation turns out to be just the opposite. From AP, with thanks to Doc Washburn:
Jordan’s Crown Prince Hamzah on Saturday urged reforms in Muslim thinking and criticized Islamic extremism, but said such fanaticism resulted from injustices and oppression being suffered by Muslims.
Hamzah, a half brother of Jordan’s King Abdullah II and heir to the throne, told 80 scholars from 40 countries attending a three-day conference here that the Muslim world was facing “successive pressures and challenges … (that) extend to every corner of the (Islamic) nation’s potential and its sacred shrines.”
Hamzah did not elaborate on the pressures Muslims were facing, saying only that fanaticism was caused by a “deprivation, oppression and absence of justice” that “provokes hatred.”
The prince said the extremist Islamic behavior resulting from such pressure is, then, “taken as evidence to convict and blame Muslims on the false assumption that these are characteristics of their morals, principles and even religion.”
“But the truth is that Islam and the Muslims reject and condemn these exceptional cases as strange to their true religion and as a form of transgression,” he said….
“Extremism has destroyed, throughout history, remarkable achievements in great civilizations, including our Islamic civilization,” he said. “When hatred is dominant and hearts are closed, and when people do not resort to the rulings of Sharia (Islamic law) and reason, the tree of civilization withers away and societies cease to grow.”
Hamzah also blamed the media for “weakening the Muslim’s energy and soul,” and suggested that educational reform could remedy extremism and inform the masses of Islam’s true meaning.