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Posted on 09/20/2004 10:06:03 PM PDT by Destro
17 September, 2004
RUSSIA
Slaughter of Beslan children done as murderers shouted “God is Great”, says theologian
According to deacon Kuraev, Islam must not let itself be used by terrorists.
Moscow (AsiaNews) – Beslan was a “religious” crime, a “ritual murder” carried out by people shouting Allah Akbar (God is great), this according to Orthodox theologian Andrei Kuraev, professor at the Moscow Orthodox Theological Academy.
In “How to perceive Islam after Beslan?”, an article published on September 15 in the Moscow daily Izvestia, deacon Kuraev writes: “What happened in Beslan is not just a crime. It was a religious crime. It was ritual murder, the murder of children with prayers in the background. The terrorists killed in the name of their faith. They killed people shouting Allah Akbar and sacrificed innocent children on the altar of their religious ideas.”
Kuraev goes further: “They were not just gangsters who killed. They were people of one faith who killed Christians in the name of their creed.” One episode, he believes, makes this point clear. Sacha, a 13-year-old boy, was among the children taken hostage in the school. He wore a cross around his neck. When one of the terrorist saw it, the man turned his gun towards the boy and shouted: “Pray!” Sacha reacted by shouting “Christ is risen!” and escaped through a window.
In his message of condolences to President Putin, Patriarch Aleksij II said that “terrorism showed its satanic face” in Beslan. For Kuraev terrorism is “satanic”, not Islam as a whole. For this reason, he considers the Beslan terrorists satanic. “When I speak of Satanism in relation to the terrorists,” the theologian writes, “I am not defining Islam as a satanic religion. The Beslan terrorists killed many Muslims as well because they saw them as evil Muslims”.
Deacon Kuraev is certain that the fate of the world in the 21st century is in the hands of Muslim theologians. Someone like Mullah Omar (an Afghan spiritual leader linked to Osama bin Laden) supported the 9/11 attacks in New York. By contrast, other Muslim religious leaders strongly disapproved of them. Similarly, he adds, “whilst Saudi Wahabi ulema (legal scholars) have recommended sending women as shahida (martyrs) to Russia, Russian Muslim leaders have repeatedly stated that terrorism in the name of Islam violates Islam’s own principles.”
Kuraev suggests the Russian government create the appropriate conditions for the national media to serve as a forum for those who can offer a peaceful interpretation of Islam and curtail the sermonising by firebrand Muslim radicals.
“Even if the Islamic world refuses to admit it, it is responsible for Muslim terrorism,” Kuraev claims. “Its major fault lies in the fact that it allows itself to be used.” However, the Russian theologian believes the West, too, has to bear some of the responsibility. Deacon Kuraev is in fact convinced that there is anti-Muslim and anti-Christian terrorist plan concocted in the West that seeks to set up a “new global order”. For this reason, he berates those who are “are trying to confuse us and pit us one against the other.” For him, Russia has already become the bulwark “that protects Europe against an aggressive Islamic world”.
In the nineties, Russia opted for a hedonistic culture in lieu of the Christian faith. For deacon Kuraev, the war on terrorism can drive her back into the fold of religion. (AF)
bump
If Abdul will pray, to a glowing crater.
Could he be talking about Soros?
Yes, and others.
These savages filmed themselves raping teenage girls during this siege. Is this in the Koran?
I'm wondering precisely how the West has benefitted from Islamic terrorism? This inflamatory rhetoric from the perpetually paranoid Russians reminds me of the old saying: "Never trust a Russian".
Muslim cults must be eradicated from this planet.
The murderers are saying the same thing on the tape as Eugene Armstrong's head is sawed off and as he continues to scream until the last couple of cuts........These people(?) are beyond barbaric........America needs to wake up and realize that they'd like to do that to every one of us. I truly hope that President Bush goes medieval on these wasteoids on the day after the election.
Boy that is one truth for many of them, you can be sure.
They truly are evil incarnate. May God bless the soul of that poor man!! And May his family find peace.
Mein Koran = Mein Kampf
And I thought I was done crying for these children.
INDEED HE IS RISEN, SACHA!
ping to read about Sacha, a most incredible child who won hugely in the face of terror. With no food or water for 50+ hours, and with a man holding a gun on him demanding he pray, he has the courage to tell the man "Christ is Risen!" before he leaps through a window.
I heard on Nightline of all places that the terrorists had beheaded some of the children and also got off their lids. these muslims are barbarians.
I had not heard that. It makes sense that the media here would not want us to know about it, I suppose.
What do you think? About the above post? The video, perhaps.
late ping...
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