IT takes a supremely brave
individual to look into the eyes of Muslim extremists and tell them they are
un-Islamic and unbelievers.
That is exactly what Dr Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri has done and that is why he
acclaimed across the world as an enlightened, moderate voice within Islam.
Dr Qadri was born in Pakistan and became a distinguished scholar, lawyer and
politician in his home country.
These days he is based in Canada and he travels the world to speak and touch
base with members of Minhaj-ul-Quran International, the organisation he founded.
It is described as a worldwide, broad-based moderate Islamic welfare, human
rights and education organisation.
Last week he was in Brisbane to address an interfaith meeting at Eight Mile
Plains.
Now to say this man and his message are inspirational is something of an
understatement.
I think most of the 500 or so people who heard him speak last Friday realised
they were in the presence of an exceptional man.
He is a slight, immaculately-groomed individual and at first he spoke softly so
the audience was straining to hear his words as he explained that true Islam
does not accept brutality, extremism, militancy, killing and massacre.
There were murmurs of approval as he described Australia as "the best society,
the best community on this planet, practising multifaith, multiculturalism and
diversity in its true sense and reality".
His voice rose to a crescendo while urging the audience to reject "bin Ladenism"
and to remember that a Muslim was, first and foremost, a person of mercy.
He was given a prolonged standing ovation and looking around the room it was
obvious a lot of healing was going on.
Dr Qadri is one man who can reach across that most difficult of divides - the
one that exists between the Muslims and modern Western society.
The Brisbane audience was predominantly Muslim but also included local Jewish
leaders, Amnesty International Queensland president David Forde and John Mickel,
Speaker of the Queensland Parliament.
Their attendance was a show of solidarity with a Muslim community which has done
it tough over the past decade.
There is no doubt the vast majority of Muslims in this country were appalled by
the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the Bali bombings of October 2002 which
killed 89 Australians.
But that did not spare them from being jeered at and spat on in the street and
viewed with hostility as an anti-Islamic backlash swept the Western world.
Reports that that radical Muslims in Sydney and Melbourne had planned terrorist
attacks in this country added to the tension.
Last year, radical Melbourne Muslim cleric Abdul Nacer Benbrika and five of his
followers were jailed on terrorism charges. At their trial, a jury was told they
discussed terrorist acts on city landmarks in Melbourne.
There were also revelations that mosques in Sydney and Melbourne were selling
notorious and fraudulent anti-Semitic tracts such as The Protocols of the Elders
of Zion.
It didn't help when Sheik Taj Din al-Hilaly the imam of the Lakemba mosque in
Sydney and an Australian Sunni Muslim leader made a series of controversial
statements. In 2006 he compared women wearing skimpy clothing to "uncovered
meat". Before that he had called the Holocaust a "Zionist lie".
Brisbane was somewhat removed from these controversies but it was not spared
entirely.
The worst attack against Muslims came only days after 9/11 when a wooden mosque
in Kuraby in Brisbane's south was firebombed and burnt to the ground.
More recently, there were some protests about the expansion of the Australian
International Islamic College which has campuses at Durack, Carrara and Buranda.
Some callers to talkback radio worried about the schools turning out suicide
bombers.
Dr Qadri has built a lot of bridges with the non-Islamic world but his main
message is aimed directly at Muslims for a very good reason.
He is on the side of the angels in a battle for the soul of Islam.
For this, he has widespread support in the West and his profile increased in
March 2010, when he published a 600-page "fatwa" or edict, which declared that
terrorism and suicide attacks were "un-Islamic".
After this, he appeared on Sky News, BBC News and Al-Jazeera and was interviewed
by Sir David Frost.
There is much admiration for the work of Minhaj-ul-Quran International which in
2010 ran an anti-terrorism camp for Muslim youth in the UK.
Moderates such as Dr Qadri do not fear the West, which, as he says, allows
Muslims more human rights and freedoms than Arab nations.
His chief enemies are Islamic hardliners inspired and funded by the austere
Wahhabist or Salafist traditions of Saudi Arabia.
The militants and terrorists have particular disdain for the Sufi Muslim
tradition to which Dr Qadri belongs. Sufism is a "mystical" stand of Islam which
venerates saints and includes rituals of singing and dancing. Taliban extremists
in Pakistan consider Sufis to be decadent and heretical and have killed hundreds
of people in bomb attacks at shrines in the past two years.
This, of course, is the heart of the problem.
All Muslims look to the Quran and the Sunnah - the teaching and practice of
Prophet Muhammad(S.A.A.W).
Different people interpret these ancient texts in different ways. While Dr Qadri
cites the Prophet's tolerance of other religions, you won't find any churches or
mosques in Saudi Arabia.
Such a divergence of views, or course in not confined to Islam - take a look at
the ruckus in the Christian church over homosexuality.
And in centuries past, Christians used the Bible to all sorts of
barbarism, from anti-Jewish pogroms to slavery.
The Christian world has evolved into a largely liberal-democrat entity. The
Islamic world has a long way to go.
It is important that we give plenty of support to decent ordinary Muslims and
leaders such as Dr Qadri.
by David Costello
[email protected]
Source: https://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/calm-voice-in-sea-of-extremism/story-fn6ck45n-1226108467407