PROMINENT IRISH MUSLIM cleric Shaykh Dr Muhammad Umar Al-Qadri has called on the Islamic leadership here to denounce and condemn extremism.
Shaykh Umar earlier told Keelin Shanley on RTE’s Today with Seán O’Rourke that a member of his council was physically assaulted when trying to post anti-extremist flyers at a Dublin mosque.
He claimed that up to 100 of the 50,000 Muslims in Ireland are silent supporters of Islamic State with radical ideologies.
“These people have not been challenged or isolated. This does not mean they are violent extremists, but they are extremist in their ideology and thinking. We must stand against them,” he said.
On one occasion recently a member of our council was physically assaulted by another Irish Muslim when trying to post flyers for peace at a mosque in Dublin.
This mosque is silent and refuses our posters, yet it will allow protests against America, against Israel, and now one of our people has been assaulted.
Shaykh Umar would not identify the mosque in question, other than saying it had been negative towards his anti-extremist stance.
It is time for the Muslim leaders here to condemn the atrocities that are being committed in the name of Islam.
Otherwise it leaves space for ambiguity. The Irish Muslim community is very young, and many of them are ignorant of the teachings of the Koran.
The Koran says that if you kill one person it is the same as killing all of humanity, likewise if you save one person you are saving all of humanity.
He said that he has heard talk of Irish people leaving to fight for Isis in Iraq and Syria.
“One guy came to me, a teenager, born and raised in Ireland, and said that he wanted to go to Iraq to fight for Islam,” he said.
This is just a teenager, with a very limited world-view. I spoke to him for an hour and by the end he was fully satisfied that Isis is in no way an Islamic state.
Shaykh Umar said that he had also met a man in his 30s who similarly wanted to travel to fight, but that he was unaware if the man had done so or not.
No religion
“We need to engage with the Muslim youth. Many Imams here do not even speak English,” he said.
We have to condemn these atrocities committed in the name of Islam.
The media has a part to play too in taking responsibility. The phrase ‘Islamic Terrorism’ is incorrect. Terrorism has no religion.
Shaykh Umar, who was heavily involved in the march last weekend against extremism in Dublin, has previously set up an online guide to prevent radicalisation, called Jihad.info.
“The purpose of the guide is to prevent radicalisation of our Irish Muslims so that they do not go the way of so many extremists in the UK,” he said.
It is called jihad because the term ‘jihad’ has been distorted and hijacked by extremists. We should not acknowledge them. Jihad itself is a noble concept.
At present, we are leaving space for extremists to radicalise, recruit and brainwash vulnerable Irish Muslims.
At present Shaykh Umar does not believe that there is an imminent threat of extremism in Ireland.
“At present, no. The reason we launched the guide is we want to ensure that we do not have the problems of extremism that other countries in Europe are facing,” he said.
We have to take that responsibility. Work for peace, and say no to extremism in this country, in the name of our religion at least.
As many Irish know from their interactions with them, most Muslims are very friendly, very peaceful people, and not violent at all.
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