“Follow the Prophet Mohammed, don’t follow bin Laden,” was the message from an anti-terrorism summer camp led by a top academic, which attracted hundreds of young British Muslims this week.
Al-Hidayah (The Guidance) was led by Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, who earlier this year issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, against terrorism.
His message to the roughly 1,300 people attending the three-day event on a university campus in Coventry, England, was clear — terrorism is anti-Islamic.
The message was welcomed by members of the British Muslim community, which has been in the spotlight since the July 7, 2005 suicide attacks on London’s public transport system killed 52 innocent people, plus the four young British Muslim extremists who blew themselves up.
“The thing he said about terrorism is a big thing to say,” Anam Nazir, a young woman who attended the event, said.
“I’m from Pakistan and I have never seen any scholar say things like that in the media because they’re too scared ... he’s brave,” she said.
The event, which ended on Monday, cost about £200 (US$320) per person to attend, including accommodation.
On the agenda were lectures about issues faced by Muslims living in the West, such as terrorism, suicide bombing and integration, as well as music and sports, plus prayers in the room, which is usually the students’ disco.
However, for many attendees, one highlight was the opening speech by Tahir-ul-Qadri, the Canadian-based founder of moderate Islamic NGO Minhaj-ul-Quran International, during which he spoke out against al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden.
Afterwards, Tahir-ul-Qadri said Islam states that followers can only voice disagreements with laws in a peaceful manner, and that it was a religion that preached integration.
Islamic law says, “these countries that protect your life and your wealth and your honor ... are peaceful countries so you’re not allowed to become terrorists against these countries and these societies,” he said.
“This is the commandment of the Holy Prophet and Islam and Allah, to be integrated in the society where you’re living,” he said.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the