Oct 14 2002 – Australian Muslims were outraged, shocked and saddened by the Bali bomb blasts, Victoria’s peak Islamic organisation said today.
Islamic Council of Victoria president Yasser Soliman said the attacks should be condemned irrespective of who carried them out.
“These attacks against innocent people represent a crime against God and humanity,” Mr Soliman said.
“We declare our sympathy for all the innocent people killed and injured in the attacks, including Indonesians and people of many other nationalities.
“But our feelings of anger and loss are further magnified by the knowledge that so many of the victims are fellow Australians.
“We express our deepest condolences to the victims, their families and their friends and we pray to God to comfort the hearts of all those affected.”
Mr Soliman said Australian Muslims prayed that the perpetrators would soon be caught, brought to justice and punished with the full force of the law.
He said that from previous experience Australian Muslims may be targeted by those seeking revenge for the Bali bombings.
He said several Muslims were assaulted in the wake of the September 11 terrorism attacks.
Related Item:
Islam Is Not The Source of Terrorism, But Its Solution.
Source: www.islamdenouncesterrorism.com
Those who resort to or support terrorism in the name of Islam are in a great error. They are committing a crime which God has cursed in the Koran. All true Muslims denounce terrorism of any kind, and share the sorrows of its victims.
Terror, in its broadest sense, is violence committed against non-military targets for political purposes. To put it another way, targets of terror are entirely innocent civilians whose only crime, in the eyes of terrorists, is to represent “the other side”.
A society in which Islamic moral values are truly honoured is a society characterised by peace, forgiveness, love, compassion and mutual support and joy.
For this reason, terror means subjecting innocent people to violence, which is an act bereft of any moral justification. This, as in the case of murders committed by Hitler or Stalin, is a crime committed against mankind.
The Qur’an is a Book revealed to people as a guide to the true path and in this Book, God commands man to adopt good morals. This morality is based upon concepts such as love, compassion, tolerance and mercy. The word “Islam” is derived from the word meaning “peace” in Arabic. Islam is a religion revealed to mankind with the intention of presenting a peaceful life through which the infinite compassion and mercy of God manifest on earth. God calls all people to Islamic morals through which compassion, mercy, peace and tolerance can be experienced all over the world. In Sura Baqara, verse 208, God addresses believers as follows:
O You who believe! Enter absolutely into peace (Islam). Do not follow in the footsteps of Satan. He is an outright enemy to you.
As the verse makes clear, security can only be ensured by “entering into Islam”, that is, living by the values of the Qur’an. The values of the Qur’an hold a Muslim responsible for treating all people, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, kindly and justly, protecting the needy and the innocent and “preventing the dissemination of mischief”. Mischief comprises all forms of anarchy and terror that remove security, comfort and peace. As God says in a verse, “God does not love corruption”. (Qur’an, 2:205)
Murdering a person for no reason is one of the most obvious examples of mischief. God repeats in the Qur’an a command He formerly revealed to Jews in the Old Testament thus:
…if someone kills another person – unless it is in retaliation for someone else or for causing corruption in the earth – it is as if he had murdered all mankind. And if anyone gives life to another person, it is as if he had given life to all mankind… (Qur’an, 5:32)
As the verse suggests, a person who kills even a single man, “unless it is in retaliation for someone else or for causing corruption in the earth”, commits a crime as if he had murdered all mankind.
In Sura Ma’ida, verse 32, God says that if anyone kills someone unjustly, it is as if he had murdered all mankind. To murder even one person is totally opposed to the moral teaching of the Qur’an.
God informs us how this cruel face of terrorism will be punished in the hereafter in the following verse:
There are only grounds against those who wrong people and act as tyrants in the earth without any right to do so. Such people will have a painful punishment. (Qur’an, 42:42)
All these reveal that organising acts of terror against innocent people is utterly against Islam and it is unlikely that any true Muslim could ever commit such crimes. On the contrary, Muslims are responsible for stopping these people, removing “mischief on earth” and bringing peace and security to all people all over the world. Islam cannot be reconciled with terror. Just the contrary, it should be the solution to and the path to the prevention of terror.