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TODAY
in mosques across Britain, Moslems will gather for Friday
prayers knowing that relations between this country’s biggest
religious minority, two million strong, and the larger community
are desperately delicately balanced. Either the carnage in
the U.S. will divide us as never before, in which case
the extremists, the bigots and the hatemongers will have won.
Or we will be able to forge a new unity based on mutual understanding
and respect for each others’ beliefs, culture and traditions.
If we are to stand united, Moslems have a duty to explain
their faith and their customs far more openly to the rest
of the country, so that they understand that in Islam there
is no place for extremism. Already, following the terrorist
outrages in America, mosques here have been desecrated and
Moslem women and children vilified and attacked by ignorant,
Right-wing extremists who have no idea what we Moslems really
believe.
AT
THE same time, a handful of provocative, headline-grabbing
so called Islamic groups have attracted attention for their
deilberately inflammatory, insulting - and, I must stress,
deeply un-Islamic — declarations of support for those suspected
of carrying out those foul deeds. So, even before the
U.S. has produced hard evidence to suggest that Osama Bin
Laden’s followers, or any other self-styled Islamic group,
were responsible for those atrocities, unrepresentative groups
here are perversely rushing to associate themselves, and our
great religion, with the killings. What madness. The world
needs to know how this crime was planned, coordinated and
executed. Evidence against any suspect must be objective and
credible and must be shared with the international community.
Eventually there should be a public trial in an international
court. That is why the guidance which the mainstream Moslem
Council of Britain has sent out to all our mosques is clear
and unequivocal. As Moslems, it is our duty to condemn the
killings and our duty to ensure that those on the fringe do
not shame our community by justifying the killing of innocent
people. The truth is that the Holy Koran states: ‘If anyone
murders an [innocent] person ... it will be as if he had murdered
the whole of humanity.’ And the Prophet (Peace be upon
him) himself forbade attacks on women, children and non-combatants.
Ultimately our duty is to adhere to the Five Pillars of Faith,
which include the profession of faith, the five daily prayers
the charitable tax to provide for the needy, fasting during
the month of Ramadan, and the hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca.
It is aiso our duty to respect the family and, in particular,
our womenfolk. (The modesty which Islam requires of them in
a Western society obsessed with sex is, in fact, protective
and liberating rather than repressive.)
ONE
thing is certain. We British Moslems do not want to live in
a society in which - as has happened this week the Moslem
Council’s telephone lines are jammed with calls from parents
asking if it is safe to send our children to school, or to
encourage our wives and daughters to go out alone. I came
to this country as a student 30 years ago and have come to
love it as my adopted home. I am proud to tell visitors that
this is still a very tolerant nation which has allowed us
to practise our religion and to exercise our rights. Now a
generation of British Moslems are growing up who were born
here and have never known any other home. They are not Moslems
who happened to find themselves in Britain. They are British
Moslems. Among them are my eight-year old twin boys. So how
are they reacting? Well, on the night of the suicide attacks
these little ones came to me and said: ‘Daddy, are the people
who crashed those planes really Moslems like us?’ The erroneous
message they had picked up was that people like their family
and friends, people they will see in the mosque today and
every Friday, were responsible for these atrocities. It troubled
them because, rightly, they did not recognise their gentle
and supportive community as composed of psychopathic killers
and lunatic ranters. That is why I was so delighted by the
many messages of support and encouragement Moslem organisations
such as ours have received this week from many Christian and
Jewish groups and ordinary folk.
So
MANY people have made it clear that there is not the slightest
justification for attacks on places of worship and members
of ethnic minorities. Perhaps the racists who have perpetrated
these shameful retaliatory attacks need to be reminded that
among the 5,000 innocent people missing or dead there - are
more than 1,000 Moslems - and of the hundreds of British citizens
missing, at least one of these is a Moslem.
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