Yesterday was the first anniversary of London bombings that hit the city last year, killing 52 innocents and wounding many others.
While the British Prime Minister Tony Blair advised the British people that the anniversary is an opportunity for "the whole nation to come together," mainstream media seized the chance to point the finger of blame at the Muslim Community.
Most of the Western media agencies focused on a video featuring one of the four bombers who carried out last year’s attack in London. The transcript of the tape with Shezhad Tanweer, alleged Al Qaeda's number two Ayman al-Zawahiri and the network's alleged propaganda chief, Adam Gadahn, was published on the U.S.-based "Search for International Terrorist Entities" website.
The video was used to fuel negative sentiments against the Muslim world.
An article published on Al Sharq Al Awsat, commenting on the attacks which took place in London last year, and discussing the impact it had on Muslims living in the West, specially in London, said that over the past few years “a small number of groups associated with Islam have followed the example of the Khwarij, who deserted religion.”
Such groups moved away from the path of Islam. They’re as misguided as the Khwarij, who besides calling other Muslims non-believers and killing them, violated and attacked people who belong to other religions.
Such groups carry out acts of violence that have nothing to do with the Islamic religion and its noble teachings that prohibit violating people’s rights, even if they are not Muslims.
Such acts serve the goal of those who wish to defame the image of Islam. They also negatively impact and endanger the lives of many Muslims living in Europe and the United States.
However the roots of emergence of such groups shouldn’t be ignored.
Many analysts drew a link between the bombings in London and Iraq war. They say that the unjust British foreign policy and Iraq war in particular created this bitter feeling against the British people, and that could be seen as a key cause of young Britons joining such groups.
London bombings were carried out by a group of misguided youths, who were the reason for the death of many innocent people, an act religiously prohibited, and in Islam, considered a huge sin.
The article moreover warned Muslims all over the world to beware of those who infiltrate their religion, claiming that they are practicing the true teachings of Islam, for they actually seek to destroy the relations between Muslims and the West.
Numerous Muslim clerics denounced the attacks on London, and explained that such acts have nothing to do with Islam.
"Religious precepts cannot be used to justify such crimes, which are completely contrary to our teaching and practice," the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said in a joint statement with church groups issued last year in the wake of the attacks.
"We must and will be united in common determination that terror cannot succeed," said MCB secretary-general Iqbal Sacranie in a separate statement. "It is now the duty of all us Britons to be vigilant and actively support efforts to bring those responsible to justice."
"The perpetrators, whoever they turn out to be, carried out a callous crime which Islam and all human values disown," said another group, the Muslim Association of Britain.
AlJazeera
While the British Prime Minister Tony Blair advised the British people that the anniversary is an opportunity for "the whole nation to come together," mainstream media seized the chance to point the finger of blame at the Muslim Community.
Most of the Western media agencies focused on a video featuring one of the four bombers who carried out last year’s attack in London. The transcript of the tape with Shezhad Tanweer, alleged Al Qaeda's number two Ayman al-Zawahiri and the network's alleged propaganda chief, Adam Gadahn, was published on the U.S.-based "Search for International Terrorist Entities" website.
The video was used to fuel negative sentiments against the Muslim world.
An article published on Al Sharq Al Awsat, commenting on the attacks which took place in London last year, and discussing the impact it had on Muslims living in the West, specially in London, said that over the past few years “a small number of groups associated with Islam have followed the example of the Khwarij, who deserted religion.”
Such groups moved away from the path of Islam. They’re as misguided as the Khwarij, who besides calling other Muslims non-believers and killing them, violated and attacked people who belong to other religions.
Such groups carry out acts of violence that have nothing to do with the Islamic religion and its noble teachings that prohibit violating people’s rights, even if they are not Muslims.
Such acts serve the goal of those who wish to defame the image of Islam. They also negatively impact and endanger the lives of many Muslims living in Europe and the United States.
However the roots of emergence of such groups shouldn’t be ignored.
Many analysts drew a link between the bombings in London and Iraq war. They say that the unjust British foreign policy and Iraq war in particular created this bitter feeling against the British people, and that could be seen as a key cause of young Britons joining such groups.
London bombings were carried out by a group of misguided youths, who were the reason for the death of many innocent people, an act religiously prohibited, and in Islam, considered a huge sin.
The article moreover warned Muslims all over the world to beware of those who infiltrate their religion, claiming that they are practicing the true teachings of Islam, for they actually seek to destroy the relations between Muslims and the West.
Numerous Muslim clerics denounced the attacks on London, and explained that such acts have nothing to do with Islam.
"Religious precepts cannot be used to justify such crimes, which are completely contrary to our teaching and practice," the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said in a joint statement with church groups issued last year in the wake of the attacks.
"We must and will be united in common determination that terror cannot succeed," said MCB secretary-general Iqbal Sacranie in a separate statement. "It is now the duty of all us Britons to be vigilant and actively support efforts to bring those responsible to justice."
"The perpetrators, whoever they turn out to be, carried out a callous crime which Islam and all human values disown," said another group, the Muslim Association of Britain.
AlJazeera
