Posted on 07/02/2002 2:02:03 PM PDT by What Is Ain't
A delegation of high-ranking Muslim leaders from Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Egypt stopped in Chicago on Monday to offer a voice of "tolerance and moderation" after the Sept. 11 attacks and urge an end to Muslim stereotypes, particularly in the media.
"Sept. 11 had nothing to do with Islam and Muslims," said Dr. Al-Shieck Ahmad Lemu, president of the Islamic Educational Endowment in Nigeria. "Don't define Muslims according to them," he said, referring to the terrorists.
Lemu is one of a dozen Muslim leaders, scholars and lawyers on a four city "goodwill" tour organized by the Muslim World League, a non-governmental group based in Saudi Arabia. The 40-year-old league is an "observer member" of the United Nations and is a member of two UN affiliate organizations.
The group is meeting with law enforcement, academics, interfaith groups and the media in New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles "to extend a hand of friendship and create a dialogue among Muslims and non-Muslims," Abdullah al-Turki, secretary general of the league, said during a news conference at a downtown hotel.
The group met with FBI, Immigration and Naturalization Service and police officials Monday morning and was assured that "all citizens will be treated equally," said Mustafa I. Siric, the Grand Mufti of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"We notice a positive wind of change," Lemu said. "There is clearly a better understanding of Muslims."
Still, there is much work to be done, the delegates said.
"This is just one drop in a sea of efforts to meet this crisis," said Ahmad Abulmagd, with the Arab League in Cairo.
Several delegates decried the continued association between Islam and the terrorists in the media and elsewhere.
"You're giving them a label they don't deserve to represent," Siric said. He and others were particularly disturbed by the term "Islamic fundamentalist," saying the word "fundamentalist" in Arabic simply describes someone who adheres to fundamental principles of Islam.
"Fundamentalist is understood as something intolerant, irrational and leading to violence," said Muzamil Sidiqi, the former president of the Islamic Society of North America. "All of those things aren't Islamic."
One Chicago leader said Muslims share some blame for confusion around defining Islam.
Imam Wallace D. Mohammed, leader of the Muslim American Society, at the meeting to support the delegation, said Muslims should have spoken out earlier against extremists.
"No one expected that any one human being would do those sick things, but we did know about extremists who gave us a bad name," said Mohammed, the son of deceased Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. "We should have been dealing with this all along."
Denial is not a river in Egypt.
I know I keep repeating myself on this, but
Only if they stop defining all Americans as satanic liberal extremists. We're not all Democrats, either.
And the Inquisition had nothing to do with Roman Catholicism.
You can recognize that an action or group is not representative of what your religion stands for and still see that it does indeed have "something to do with" it.
This guy is in TOTAL denial. Muslims need to be taking responsibility for Islamic terrorism -- not dodging it. There are too many Muslim sypathizers with terrorism for this guy to say that terrorism has NOTHING to do with Islam.
Maybe once they step up to the plate and acknowledge the size of the violent Muslim "lunatic fringe" -- if that's what it is -- then they can do something constructive by encouraging their fellow Muslims to condemn this behavior in no uncertain terms.
It is not non-Muslims who need to have their consciousness raised about Islam. These so-called Muslim leaders ought to spend less time telling westerners to reject the evidence of their own lying eyes, and more time trying to whip up angry Muslim hostility against the purveyors of Muslim terror.
LOL, yeah, right.
"Sept. 11 had nothing to do with Islam and Muslims,"
LOL, yeah, right.
Except that they were all Muslims that did it for Islam, but that is a minor point!
Wonder how they feel about tolerance of and moderation toward Israelis and Americans? Of COURSE they want us to express tolerance and moderation toward them, and they may actually give lip service to same toward Israelis and Americans. But in reality, no such thing will be extended by the "high-ranking Muslim leaders".
What parts of NEVER! does anyone not understand?
"No one expected that any one human being would do those sick things, but we did know about extremists who gave us a bad name," said Mohammed, the son of deceased Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. "We should have been dealing with this all along."
Well, at least one guy has figured it out.
Not at all. Must have been all those Mormon hijackers, right?
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