This is, of course, just what we need — if it is done sincerely and thoroughly. If and only if. But the jury is still very much out as to whether it will go to the core of the problem: the jihad teachings in the Qur’an, Hadith, Sira, and fiqh. More on this story from The Australian, with thanks to JE:
SELF-APPOINTED Muslim religious figures would be named and shamed and young followers warned away from them as part of a push to weed out extremist Islamic teachings in Australia.
Moderate leader Yasser Soliman yesterday backed the need to regulate and censor Muslim clerics, saying there was growing concern that Muslims “having read a few books in their back yard” were too often claiming “they’re somehow sheiks, or imams, or clerics”.
Under a plan being devised by moderate Muslim leaders — and revealed in The Australian yesterday — a new national board of imams would register clerics and set guidelines for religious figures, including setting qualification levels.
Under the plan, which has angered clerics such as Melbourne’s hardline Sheik Mohammad Omran, sermons could also be monitored by the board.
The head of John Howard’s Muslim Advisory Council, Ameer Ali, told The Australian that followers of the radical imams would be “told these whom they are following are not telling the right interpretation of Islam, and that’s not what Islam is all about”.
Dr Ali warned that clerics who failed to comply with the guidelines, which will be thrashed out at a national meeting of Muslim leaders next month, would be publicly identified.
“If the majority of the imams and the leaders are moderates and have to turn to set guidelines, then those who want to stay in the periphery will be identified,” said Dr Ali, president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils.