It is not up to Prince Charles or any other non-Muslim to say what “true” Islam is. But I still don’t see that anything good can come out of ignoring that the jihad terrorists are motivated by the Qur’an and Sunnah — and Sir Iqbal’s remarks below are particularly un-reassuring. Still, I don’t see any problem with calling on Muslims to “root out extremist preachers” or trying to “tackle the evils within the Muslim community,” if it is undertaken honestly and thoroughly. “Root out extremists, prince urges,” from the BBC, with thanks to Anthony:
Prince Charles has urged “every true Muslim” to root out extremist preachers in the wake of the London bomb attacks.
An “evil influence” appeared to have been brought to bear on the suspected bombers, whose “atrocities” must be condemned, he told the Daily Mirror.
Others must resist the temptation to condemn the Muslim community for the actions of an evil minority, he added.
Tony Blair has said talks will start on new laws to make it easier to deport people trying to “incite hatred”.
Muslim leaders say they are “shocked” British Muslims may have been behind last Thursday’s attacks.
‘No link to faith’
“Some may think this cause is Islam. It is anything but. It is a perversion of traditional Islam,” Prince Charles said.
The prince said Muslim leaders were right to point out the attacks had no link to “true faith”.
“Those who claim to have murdered in the name of Islam have no care for the lives they have so brutally destroyed.
“Offended by the good relations between faiths and cultures, the extremists seek to break up the communities that make up our modern, multi-cultural society,” the prince wrote.
Sir Iqbal Sacranie said Islam could never justify the killings.
He said Britain’s tradition of welcoming new communities had to be upheld to prevent the bombers achieving their aim of dividing the community.
Now that’s counterintuitive, as well as false. The bombers don’t want to divide the community. They want to subjugate it under Islamic law. And to import more immigrants at this point, instead of becoming more careful about the values of those who are brought in, would seem to me to be foolish.
On Tuesday, the Muslim Council of Britain’s secretary general, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, said: “Nothing in Islam can ever justify the evil actions of the bombers.
“They happen to be Muslims and it’s not that Islam is the problem, it is those individuals, it is the criminality that is there,” he said.
This is disingenuous on two counts. Sir Iqbal obviously has not proven to the jihadists’ satisfaction that “nothing in Islam” can justify what they’re doing. He needs to do so now more than ever, if he can. And it isn’t that they “happen to be Muslims” who committed murder. They did the bombing because they were Muslims — by the account of all the groups that claimed credit, they did it working from Islamic principles to advance the aims of the jihad as they see them. Let Sir Iqbal address that honestly, and he will have earned the trust of all Britons. But at this point they should receive him with extreme reserve.
On Wednesday, Mr Blair met Muslim MPs to discuss how to tackle “this evil within the Muslim community”.
“In the end, this can only be taken on and defeated by the community itself,” he said.
Combined with strong law-enforcement measures by British authorities.