“What they did has nothing to do with Islam. They cut off people’s hands and feet.”
“Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment.” (Qur’an 5:33)
“How can you want to impose Sharia law in a country that is already Muslim?”
A Muslim majority doesn’t automatically make for Sharia. Turkey is Muslim but has not been a Sharia state during the (rapidly drawing to a close) period of Kemalism.
“How can men and women be whipped just because they have sexual relationships without being married?”
“The woman or man found guilty of sexual intercourse – lash each one of them with a hundred lashes, and do not be taken by pity for them in the religion of Allah , if you should believe in Allah and the Last Day. And let a group of the believers witness their punishment.” (Qur’an 24:2)
“Islamists’ acts ‘have nothing to do with Islam,'” DW, December 19, 2014:
Malian scholar Aldiouma Yattara has firsthand experience of the Islamist terror regime in his country. In an interview with DW, he describes how Islamists mainpulate [sic] religion for their own purposes….
Groups such as Ansar Dine describe themselves as “Defenders of the Faith”. They want to introduce Islamic law in northern Mali. Do you think that religion is their true motivation?
When the Islamist groups came in, they used Islam and jihad as a pretext. What they did has nothing to do with Islam. They cut off people’s hands and feet. They whipped people. We have never seen anything like this in Mali. The motivation of this group is not Islam. They want to use northern Mali, which is sparsely populated, as a base to smuggle arms and drugs. How can you want to impose Sharia law in a country that is already Muslim? 90 percent of Malians are Muslims! The world’s most important manuscripts and Mali’s largest mosques are in Timbuktu! Here people are awoken by the call of the muezzin every morning. Even the marabouts [ Islamic holy men] from Gao have confronted the jihadists and clearly told them that their actions do not conform with the Koran.
What is your understanding of jihad?If you want to call for a jihad, if you want to convert people to Islam, then you have to be moderate in your teaching, sensitizing and moralizing. You do not need to enter a mosque with weapons in order to convince people to join the jihad. Why should weapons be used against people who already believe in Islam? How can a person cut off someone’s hands without being able to prove that person really is a thief? How can men and women be whipped just because they have sexual relationships without being married? The Islamists also destroyed hotels and bars. If a jihadist marries a woman, the other fighters have also slept with her. They are now gone and left these women with their children behind. What will happen to these children in this country?