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."
If this happened at Gitmo it would be considered torture.
Let the backlash begin.
Weren't these the same Muslim people who threw feces on the American flag and burned iut in the streets in celebration after 9-11.
Aren't these some of the same people who mocked our dead and said we deserved all the terrorism that came our way.
Oh crap! wasn't that also some of the same Democratic leadership response.
This should be the headline on every newspaper around the world.
The fact they have declared a war of extermination against us, and are opening waging it.
And I don't buy for a minute that it is just few bad apples. Not anymore.
Islam is not a religion of peace. It is a death cult created by a psychopath to make other psychopaths feel good about themselves. As such it is particularly dangerous because it attracts psychopaths who use it to justify their depravity.
Not all mosquitoes are actually infected with malaria either, but that is not a reason to not drain the swamp.
"IIRC the IRA always used to call the police and tell them where the bombs were before they went off, so that people would not be killed by them. Makes a big difference to the people who weren't killed, I'd wager."
The IRA always had an eye for their support base which wouldn't have stood large scale random bloodshed. Not that their bombs didn't kill plenty of people. I'm not sure that's much of a claim to the moral highground though.
give'm a bus ticket and say "bye"
Sounds good to me.
Take care of their own problems.
"well if you were born and raised there its pretty hard to go back to somewhere you are not really from"
But religion is everything to them. Wouldn't these, animals... er, people, be more comfortable with their brothers in the Middle East?
(I know they'd be a more attactive target all gathered up in one region).
You left out "Keep posting 'Why don't the Muslems do anything?' even though it is repeated that several cells have been broken up already. "
A FEW? You'd better wake up and smell the falafel! If you don't every day, that is.
What acts did any terrorist, in London or elsewhere during my lifetime, ever take in behalf of the name of Christ? I know that there were plenty of such misguided acts performed on behalf of a desire for independence, but not to establish Christianity and destroy "infidels".
Did he have fellow jihadists doing the same thing, all over the world? I think not.
Truth factor: Islam/Muslim is neither a religion nor a religion of peace - it is a CULT!
Not too few, by conservative estimates some hundred million plus people.
There is a substantial difference between the corrupt use of the Bible to justify evil, and the actual, correct use of the Koran, which justifies evil. The former is a lie - the latter is true.
Ignoring all the template stuff, why would such a group of people who can expect only a better life after this one be so concerned with this paranoia about the possibility that someone might not like them because their fellow travellers are bombing crowds, building, and trains? Seems like it wouldn't matter to them.
Then let's call them "Southern Baptist terrorists", like Bill Moyers called Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell, or "Morman terrorists", just for diversity's sake. But that would be silly, right? How silly can PC be to call something other than what it is?
Yeah, maybe we should just line 'em all up--men, women, and children--and exteminate 'em! Or maybe you're just a sadist half-wit.
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