Muslim Group in Britain Decries “Hate”

POPULAR TAGS

Muslim Group in Britain Decries “Hate”

Leopold Stotch | Sunday, July 31, 2005

Muslim Group in Britain Decries “Hate” (Washington Times)

LONDON — Leaders of a key Muslim organization in Britain, angered by the deadly terror attacks in London, yesterday told tens of thousands of followers that “enough is enough” and urged all Muslims to turn away from “harbingers of hate.”

“The word ‘Islam’ means peace,” said Rafiq Hayat, national president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association U.K., “but we have to live by it in order to grow.”

Mr. Hayat’s call for Muslims to quit listening to fanatics who stir terrorists to action came in the wake of a new opinion survey showing that one in four Muslims in Britain sympathizes with the motives of the suicide bombers who killed 52 commuters in the British capital on July 7.

[...]

Mr. Hayat told 30,000 Ahmadi Muslims at the start of their 39th convention at Aldershot, England, near London, that “it’s time for all Muslims to say ‘enough is enough’ ” and that “we wish to practice Islam as exemplified by our founder, Prophet Muhammad.”

“We call for a grass-roots revolution in mosques across the U.K., where ordinary people wish to make a future in the U.K., [and] for the sake of themselves and their children and for the sake of humanity, turn away from the harbingers of hate and root out fanaticism.”

Muslims, Mr. Hayat said, should honor the “true meaning of Islam — peace, tolerance, respect and humanity.”

Obviously a welcomed statement, but the article makes me wonder: if 25 percent of Muslims in Britain are Islamist sympathizers, what is the corresponding figure among Middle Easterners?