Posted on 01/10/2006 10:48:27 AM PST by sully777
MECCA, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - A top Saudi cleric told Muslim pilgrims marking the climax of haj on Tuesday that the West was using the global phenomenon of terrorism to scare people away from Islam and discredit legitimate Muslim causes.
Sheikh Abdulrahman al-Sudeis, the state-appointed preacher at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, also called for stability in Iraq and said Islam was innocent of the charge of "terrorism."
"The campaign against Islam has become fierce and Muslims are being described in insulting terms to distort the image of Islam and scare people away from it," he told the 2.5 million pilgrims in a sermon to mark the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha.
He accused Western countries of hypocrisy in promoting freedom and democracy, citing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"When the oppressor Zionist enemy uses its war of smart bombs and tanks against our brothers in Palestine, violating our holy sites, that's not terrorism to their mind -- but defending land, religion and honor is," Sudeis said.
Israel has largely crushed a Palestinian uprising launched in 2000 and Al-Haram al-Sharif, the site of Islam's holy Al-Aqsa mosque, is in Arab East Jerusalem, which was annexed by Israel after its capture in the 1967 Middle East war in a move that has not been recognised internationally.
Israel says military measures taken in Palestinian areas are self-defence against suicide bombings and other attacks.
The Palestinian issue is often cited by Islamic militants, including those fighting the U.S.-backed government in Iraq.
"Islam is innocent of this grave phenomenon (of terrorism). The shedding of blood in this country and other Muslim countries is a forbidden criminal act," the cleric said, adding that fighting Islamic rulers was "foolish" and counterproductive.
"We should not forget our brothers in Iraq in the continuing spiral of injustice and murder, and (we should) act seriously to bring security, stability and unity to them," he said.
A campaign of violence to bring down the U.S.-allied Saudi rulers has largely run out of steam over the past year. The kingdom has deployed thousands of security forces at the holy sites to prevent possible attacks during the haj.
Nuts, he is on to us.
So we've been wrong all this time that these terrorist acts all around the world were planned and executed by Muslims? You just can't trust the media these days!
Whew! What a relief...The cleric said that terrorist acts are "criminal" and forbidden in Islam. Oh boy, do I feel relieved now. Just makes all the difference in the world.
They can hire OJ to find the real killers.
Only the fouth paragraph before we discover "the Jooos are doing it."
Does anyone else see the dichotomy in this sentence? We are not terrorists and it is foolish to resist us?
I'm convinced that islam and terrorists are not compatible. How bout y'all?
No, over a millenium of death and destruction discredits Islam quite well... Terrorism is just the latest incarnation.
"Stop JIhad Now!"
Speaking of hypocrisy... amazing that Muslims have the gall to claim their "holy sites" are being violated while a mosque sits atop the Temple Mount.
It's a WHOLE 'nother dictionary. The words do not mean what we THINK they mean.
And remember- Islam only considers other MUSLIMS as human beings and people! So, of course, all the murder of infidels doesn't break the laws of Islam.
It is islamic terrorism; they own it. If it discredits Islam, so be it. The West could not care less and need do nothing to maintain the reputation of that sect.
Moolahs and Democrats, What are your actual causes? What do you really stand for. How would you run things differently?
Writing that I see that we get clearer answers from the Mooselimb Moolahs.
Honestly, Why is is so hard to get someone in the public eye to ask Fat @ss and fat @ss 2 (Ted and shillary) to actually say what they would do different than Bush. They just b!tch about his policy and give absolutely no plan of their own.
Exactly.
It remains true that not all Muslims are terrorists.
However, most terrorists are the sons of Mohammed.
And this is diffent than the use of the auto da fey and the Inquisition to discredit Catholicism, and Christianity in gerneral, how?
If the point is to say that, historically, this or that religion engaged in questionable practices and activities, in the hopes of establishing some sort of moral and ethical equivalency, then why should Islam be immune to this sort of thinking? What's good for the goose is good for the gander, is it not?
Yes, Christians have engaged in pogroms, the burning of heretics at the stake, witchcraft trials and a series of wars based upon doctrinal differences. This is documented, historical fact.
Islam has also engaged in these practices (conversion at sword point, conquest as religious duty, exploitation of racial/religious differences for profit (not prophet, of course), sectarian slaughters, inquisitions, et. al. It can hardly be argued that the most ardent practicioners of terror tactics nowadays are Christians,or that Christianity, Buddhism, etc. provide religious sanction for the use of terror as a means of advancing the religion (at least anymore. We've had a reformation and an Enlightenment, where you have not).
Be careful where you cast aspersions.People in glass houses and all that...
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