Posted on 07/08/2005 12:59:23 PM PDT by phoenix_004
Thousands of Muslims crowded London mosques for Friday prayers, condemning the bombings, but also wary they could be made scapegoats and fearful of reprisals against their growing and vibrant community. At the East London Mosque, near the site of one of Thursday's attacks, an imam told the 8,000 worshippers to be "confident in our identity" as part of London's multicultural fabric.
The mosque said it had received hate e-mails and a telephone threat to disrupt Friday prayers. A few police officers stood outside during the prayers, which ended peacefully.
Outside, some Muslims said the attacks had made them more cautious on the streets, but others said they were secure in their identity as Londoners - confident of the city's tolerant traditions.
"It will have some impact on people. But this is London, a cosmopolitan city," said student Ali Ayubi. "Maybe after one or two months it will go back to normal."
At the huge brick mosque in an East End neighborhood that's home to many with roots in Pakistan and Bangladesh, imam Sheikh Abdul Qayyum told worshippers that Muslims were "part of the rich diversity of British life."
"At this difficult time, some people in our community may feel insecure purely because they are Muslims, but these terrible events have nothing to do with us. The Muslims of London are victims as much as their fellow citizens," he said.
All of Britain's major Muslim groups condemned the bombings, which killed dozens and wounded more than 700. But some feared they would be blamed for the bombings, which police said bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida.
"This morning I was driving to work and a woman on the radio said she'd had her headscarf pulled. I was shocked, to be honest," said Ahmed Shafi, 31, a grocery store manager. "In this day and age you don't expect that."
Almost 1 million of London's 8 million people are Muslims. They're inseparable from the fabric of the city's society and its history. From the opulent glitz of Harrods department store - owned by Egyptian-born Mohammed al Fayed - to the kebab shops that dot the city's streets, Muslims have long been part of London's glamour and its grit.
Prime Minister Tony Blair stressed that Islam was not the culprit in the bombings.
"We know that these people act in the name of Islam, but we also know that the vast and overwhelming majority of Muslims, here and abroad, are decent and law-abiding people who abhor this act of terrorism every bit as much as we do," he said Thursday.
That message was underscored by Muslims on the streets.
"Many Muslims are British. They have lived here for years. What happens to London happens to them," said Suraiya Zammath, a Bangladeshi woman visiting relatives in London. "This should not be singled out as 'Islamic terrorists.' That destabilizes the community."
Abdul Mukith, a 37-year-old supermarket worker in Brick Lane, the heart of London's Bangladeshi community, agreed.
"What's religion got to do with it?" he asked. "I'm bloody Muslim, and I'm afraid to go into the city" just like anyone else in the aftermath of the attacks.
Still, some feared a backlash. The Muslim Council of Britain said it had been deluged with hate e-mails, which caused its server to crash late Thursday. Though it was up and running Friday, the council said it was still getting a steady stream of vitriolic missives.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said Friday that police were aware of one or two "very minor incidents" involving backlash against Muslims, but he didn't elaborate.
He said that so far, "Britain with its liberal and welcoming approach to people is taking this in its stride. I'm very proud of that."
Representatives of several religious faiths held a silent prayer vigil Friday in a street near Aldgate subway station, where seven people died.
"There is a worry, but I think we can overcome this because we have been working with all the communities together," said Muhammad Abdul Bari, chairman of the East London Mosque.
"As Muslims, as British citizens, as Londoners, we are confident nothing will happen to us. We have to face it with resilience and with confidence."
But Shafi feared he and other Muslims would endure animosity in the coming days and weeks.
"I'm a practicing Muslim, I've got a beard. After 9/11 people called me bin Laden," he said. "But I was born and brought up here, and I don't consider myself anything but British."
Then how come the mainstream Muslims don't do more to root out the terrorists in their midst?
Bad argument. 7/7 was the first terrorist to succeed in London. There have been a number of arrests breaking up potential attacks.
it is a cancer oin need of resection.
"The IRA attacks have stopped. Who do you suppose accomplished that? Muslims?"
Together with the rest of the British people, yes. We damn sure didn't accomplish it by sticking every Catholic in an internment camp or by nuking Rome though.
You are not paranoid, if someone is actually out to get you!
This is a Muslim problem and only Muslims can halt this cycle of violence. We, as members of the civilized nations of the world, can encourage and lend them support, but ultimately, it is up to them.
The secret is how to get the billions of Muslims around the world to take definitive action!
Perhaps, by personally following individual Muslims, you can make this war a little more personal. If they do not like being followed, then they can do something make a change.
They are afraid because they have given reason for civilized people to want to exterminate islam.
Islam will never change. Since the inception of islam, the focus had been on spreading islam throught the world by force, killing anyone who resists and forcing islamic law on everyone. Do not once think that this is not the intentions of all muslims. There are muslims that openly preach this tactic and remaining muslims support it silently. Muslims have a primary allegiance to islam and to all other muslims. This allegiance holds presidence over allegiance to any country or feigned friendship with infidels. There are no muslim Americans. There are muslims who live in America and pretend to love America. In reality, they are lusting for total islamification of America where sharia will be the law of the land. There is no "other" islam. There are no "peaceful muslims" or "moderate muslims". There are just muslims who have not actually slit anyone's throat. They are all part of the islamic infrastructure. Islam teaches a comprehensive way of life that covers every facet of living, including iron fisted religious law.
You can sit back and let it happen or you can stand up and do something: 1) Arm yourself and your family and know how to use these arms. 2)Demand That Your Congressman Declare islam a Terrorist Organization.
Few IRA members are practicing Catholics. None claim that what motivates them is Catholicism.
I only wish for jihadists what they wish for the "infidels".
Look, we're all pissed about this, but your insistence that the islamofascists and the average Muslim are in this together is as goofy as asking me to "confess" to who committed the last IRA bombing simply because I'm Catholic.
Because it's part of their image as total cowards.
Yes, it's a nice fantasy, but it will never happen.
It's not an argumentative statement. Muslim terrorists may have planned other attacks and failed to pull them off, but that does not make 7/7 the 1st terrorist act in London--just the first attributable to Muslims. In the last 30 years, the terrorist attacks in London have only been done by the IRA.
That being said, where did the PanAm Flight (the one that exploded over Lockerbie) originate? That one could count as a Muslim terrorist act out of London.
What an interesting perspective you have.
I Googled "dar ul-harb" this morning and learned a great deal about why there has been no Muslim outcry against the terrorists, and why Great Britain was hit. If someone else can post it, please do -- it's terribly important.
Every Freeper should read this (no time to post it, rushing to meet a plane).
I think you'll find that there is no such thing as a "Christian terrorist", not in the same sense as there are Muslim terrorists. The IRA terrorists were not looking to impose a religious state upon the UK.
I'm Jewish, by the way, and you can bet the farm that I'd be first on line to protest and condemn and eliminate anyone who conducted terrorism in the name of my faith. But of course we have the commandment "Thou shalt not murder", so by definition there can be no Jewish terrorism (nor Christian terrorism). Islam has no such injunction; the truth of Islam is the opposite, that it encourages terror against non-Muslims.
Yep I know all about it. They define in doctrine their relationship with the non-Muslim as a state of war. Can't get much clearer than that.
All they have to do is put up a sign outside their mosque:
"All Moslems have a religious duty to assist the authorities in apprehending and convicting the 7/7/05 terrorist bombers."
And say the same thing in their sermons, in both English and Arabic.
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