Terrorist Attacks in London

Terrorist Attacks in London

As someone born and raised in the UK, I am very much British. I am also a Muslim and I am proud of that fact, and doubly-proud that I am a British Muslim.Let me then go on to say how angry, sad, appalled, disgusted and outraged I am at the perpetrators of these attacks. These sentiments are shared by our entire community of right-minded people.

If, indeed, the perpetrators describe themselves as Muslims, then I would like to say that Islam or Islamic law in no way justifies such barbaric and insane acts that cause wanton destruction and death to innocent people; no moral code in the history of humanity has any justification for such diabolic actions. The only justification is in the sick minds of a few twisted and misguided people who we all would like to see locked up and punished to the fullest extent of the law.

Throughout the years we have enjoyed good community relations between various ethnic and religious groups and the various populations of these isles. The Muslims have made positive contributions to their local communities, towns and cities and to the country as a whole, both nationally and internationally.

Unfortunately, we, like other communities, have our fair share of misguided individuals who, for some unknown and irrational reasons, are well capable of perpetrating such crimes. The only word that I can use to describe such ?people? – and I use the term ?people? sparingly, for they are worse than animals, proven by their bestial and cowardly actions in London on 7th July 2005 – is “shayateen”, or “devils”, who clothe themselves in the garb and language of Muslims.

How is it that someone who considers his or herself Muslim will perpetrate such an act and initiate the invocation “In the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful”, when what they are doing is the antithesis of graciousness and mercy? In fact, these people should use the invocation “In the Name of Al-Qa’ida (or any other such group), most disgraceful, most unmerciful”.

Graciousness and Mercy permeate Islam; everything in Islam is geared toward Mercy, Compassion and Graciousness and yet these diabolical individuals oppose this and we know that the Shaytan opposes what is good.

Al-Qa’ida are a political movement that uses the language and icons of religion for rhetorical purposes and to misguide and ensnare those who do not know their religion or those who feel disenfranchised and oppressed. Al-Qa’ida articulates religio-political rhetoric in a manner that polarises the world totally. It is similar in its rhetoric and polarisation to the current Bush regime. The world is not black and white, it is a spectrum of colours. We do not accept the Manichean “you are either with us or against us” principle that both Al-Qa’ida and our politicians use.

It is my hope that ordinary people will see these attacks for what they are and not initiate a backlash against Muslims, who are totally innocent of the crimes perpetrated. It is unfortunate that any terrorist act initiated by Al-Qa’ida is immediately conflated with Islam and Muslims.

There will be many racist and bigoted people hoping to make political and racial mileage out of these tragic events who will seek to drive a wedge between communities. My hope is that most people are intelligent enough not to jump on any bandwagons and continue the good relations we have enjoyed through the many years of community.

Our prayers and thoughts are with the victims at this time.

Best wishes

Mas’ud Ahmed Khan

www.masud.co.uk

16 thoughts on “Terrorist Attacks in London

  1. Good post sidi! I think the time for pussy-footing around issues is well and truely behind us and that we must drive these fanatical lunatics, that know no rest when plotting to stain our religion with their filthy blood and the innocent blood of ordinary men, women and children, deep into the ground, with the fullest, and most damaging force we can muster from our weak selves.

    Extremism? ZERO TOLERANCE!!!

  2. Salaams to my esteemed brother,

    whilst i support the motives of your message completely, it saddens me that within 48 hrs of this tragic event, you have already concluded who the guilty parties are. you have passed judgement without a shread of evidence.
    it is all too easy in this period of high emotion to make rash judgements. we have no idea who the perpetrators of these horrendous acts are let alone what there motives were. those who claim to do are speaking from conjecture and their own beliefs and not truth.
    both of my brothers, whom i have the utmost respect for are joining the bandwagon that was rolling within a few hours of this event. by bringing religion into it you have made it into a religious issue. WE CONDEMN THESE ACTS NOT BECAUSE WE THINK THEY ARE FROM MUSLIMS, BUT BECAUSE THEY ARE ACTS AGAINST HUMANITY!

    furthermore let us assume for the time being that they are muslims. they are not doing it because their faith commands them to do us, but one could conclude this form the media outburst, they act in this way because this is how they been treated. Revenge.

    as muslims let us stand for the truth and justice no matter if it is against us and no matter where it is. the key is truth. Innocent lives are taken everyhour, everyday, in other parts of the world. is the life of a human being more important because it occured in the city we live in as opposed to one in a distant land?

    to my brother Omar, NOBODY’S blood is filthy! your rhetoric could easily have come from the mouth of bush. That is not our tradition!

    let us offer our duas to those who have lost and are grieving.

  3. >Anon

    You know and I know well enough, that there are people from within our communities that have rejoiced at what has happened. That they are able to affiliate in a perverted way with those who have caused the death of innocents in the name of some twisted and misguided understanding.

    It is also entirely believable that people calling themselves Muslim could have the conviction that an atrocity like this is justifiable in our religion. This I feel is enough for us to let this event move us to begin to say that enough is enough, that we are sick and tired to the back teeth, of being see as prime suspects number one, as you righly say, even when the guilty have not been found and all evidence has not been gathered, everytime a tragedy like this happens.

    For me, this “you can guess who has done it” that we face as a community whenever anything like this happens is a result of a disease within our community that no one can deny. That we have fanatical elements within us and that they must be neutralised, if we are to gain any sort of ground in any sort of way.

    The fact remains that we are complacent as a community, people don’t know us enough, don’t know, nor have seen the true beauty of our faith, for them to realise by themselves that these acts have no justification in Islam. If we would only do and be who we say we are day in and day out, when an event like this happens again (Allah forbid) people not of our faith would come out to proclaim “whoever did this, they CANNOT be of the Muslim faith.” But that day is a long way off, and we have much work to do.

    And if by your actions, you are able to discolour the faith and honour of more than a billion people, in my eyes, you are filthy and need cleansing!

    Peace be upon you.

  4. Nice piece Sidi, we need more Muslims like you to post their human feelings towards this sad event.

    Keep it coming, don’t worry too much about critics, its all good.

    fraternally

    rifat

  5. Salaams,

    thats all fine but then you have to “keep it coming” against those who bomb faluja , those who demolish homes in palestine, those who destroy lives in afghanistan. or do you just feel this outrage when its nearer home? where is your outrage against those crimes? where is your condenmnation against those terrorists? or dont they count? have you become immune to them? is britain/british any different to iraq/iraqi? why havent you called those who kill innocents in iraq/palestine/afghan “filthy”? have you read the comments of iman zaid shakir “we are all collateral damage” ?

    you claim that we are both aware of people who have rejoiced at such events, REALLY? I FOR ONE HAVE NOT HEARD ANYONE SAY SUCH A THING. if you have where is your evidence? who are they. i have heard voices from all spectrums and have not come across any rejoicing. (is this the same rejoicing that was claimed in the streets of palestine after 9/11 only to be later shown to be old footage of some other local celebration!)

    any feeling a human has is by definition a human feeling. it does not make it more acceptable to express just because we feel it! by all means express your condemnation of the act and sadness and support for the victims. but do not become judge and jury when you have no information/facts about the perpetrators except that which is distributed by the media. the media started to talk about suicide bombers within hours of the event, only to be refuted by the police.

    and Allah knows best.

  6. When a person speaks, it should be in accordance with a view of the current situation and the circumstance. Today the bombing has taken place in my back yard, and I speak with that reality in mind. Closer to home means it is in my face, and that is something I cannot ignore. Does that mean I am immune or indifferent to tragedies facing Muslims the world over, I sincerely hope not, that would mean my heart is dead, and I pray that is not the case.

    As for what Imam Zaid said, I do not claim to his level and so his words have a weight and wisdom that correlates to his years of study and sacrifice for this deen. Something we aspire to insha’Allah.

    Expressing condolences with an appended “but…” is not in my nature. People have lost lives, I am not going to say that these events were coming to them in their time of grief or that this is a result of policies their government has, that they might well have even opposed, and so they have only reaped what was sown.

    As for you not being aware of people who say London deserved what it got, for one example, check the DeenPort website out (www.deenport.com) for the thread titled “London Blasts” and look out for our dear brother Richard. This guy does not live in a vacuum. He obviously has been influenced by others of a similar thought. How many more Richards are there out there? I wouldn’t like to know, but may Allah help me, you and them. Ameen.

  7. Although I’m not a fan of any religion, I am against injustices no matter where it rears its ugly little head. It really saddens me to see that most of the Muslims blogs I?ve visited automatically believes that Islamic Extremists are behind this horrible act or at least this is the picture I?ve gotten. I think if you guys started reading other non-Muslim blogs like The Brad Blog a different picture will emerge. At least you can then ask the question who benefited from this act.

    http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001553.htm

  8. > Sidi Omar.

    May Allah Forgive my ignorance. I feel that the brother/sister has some good points. We are all in the state of sadness, but we have to detached ourselves from it and be objective. As the brother said, we sympathise with the victim and condemn the bombers, but who are we to judge.

    If we are quick to judge our Muslim brothers when a bomb explode then we are the guilty ones who make this into a religious issue. And worse we accused our brothers. What if in the hereafter we happened to be wrong? What slander we have done. Why?

    Arent we suppose to be firm with the disbelievers and be mercifull to one another.

    I want to stand by the truth. And at the moment, the truth is as I see it, the explosion happened, its heinous and we need to find the culprit.

    This is all from me and the possibility of it being dead wrong is so great…please forgive me if I offended anybody in any way.

  9. Obviously a lot of people are jumping to conclusions. The people whom Sidi Omar mentions as rejoicing about this being an act of terror by an Islamist group and the people who condemn Islamist groups for doing this have both decided that it /is/ an Islamist group who have perpetrated this attack.

    Speculations from blogs and news sites have considerable influenced people’s opinions and as far as I know, there is still no guaranteed evidence of this being the handiwork of an Islamist group.

    That’s external. Differences of opinion leading to enemity within our community is even worse. People accusing each other of being insensitive and stuff really hurts. I don’t think any sane muslim loves the US for all the atrocities it’s committed in Afghanistan and Iraq. As for response, people will naturally respond more warmly to something in their immediate vicinity than something a few countries away (that should not be the case but it is).

    Yes, we condemn killing of innocent people. But we shouldn’t follow the media blindly (as far as I know, the first site to print the “secret Al Qaeda of Europe” thing was Fox. We all know how reliable it is) and accuse Muslims of doing this. As for people who are rejoicing about it, they need some guidance. It seems quite obvious to me that they’re doing it out of misguidance /and/ misinformation.

    Weeding out such ideas from our community is not going to happen by blacklisting these people. They’ll develop into a misguided faction that’ll cause trouble or more dangerously be manipulated by some charismatic politician.
    It’ll only happen by an ideological shift that can be brought about by educating them.

    “Filthy Blood” is a strong term. No disrespect meant but that sounds like you’re damning those people to hell or something. Since you and I know that this is not acceptable in the religion, onus is on us to educate people about it. Not to condemn ignorant people.

    Salam

  10. Bismillah
    Assalaam-o-Alaikum

    First and foremost, we all know that there is no place in Islam for what happened on thursday. It goes completely against who we are. No if’s and no but’s.
    Secondly, it is too easy to jump to the conclusion that this attack was carried out by islamic extremists in our midst. There is no clear proof, just a message on a website. Moreover, not one single person from the UK has ever been charged with any plan to carry out a terrorist attack in the UK. Everyone arrested on suspicion on terrorist activity has been quitely released. So why do we jump to the conclusion that it was muslims who carried out these attacks. You may say it is beacause of what has happened in other countries, but none of that has been proved either.
    I think all humanity is suffering because of what is happening.
    Again, just to re-iterate, no code of law, sacred or secular condones what happened on Thursday.

    Wasalaam

  11. first of all: well said sidi mas’ud and everyone else.

    to ‘anonymous’ (its always worrying when someone appears anonymous), you made some good points regarding the injustices being afflicted the world over. please don’t mind my comments:

    >>If we are quick to judge our Muslim brothers when a bomb explode then we are the guilty ones who make this into a religious issue

    the problem is there are muslims who agree to these things, promote such things, and rejoice when they happen.

    >>And worse we accused our brothers. What if in the hereafter we happened to be wrong? What slander we have done. Why?

    true. however, if there are elements in our ummah which actively teach this ideology, we need to deal it with until muslims can be blamed no more. the fact of the matter is, there is clear proof that the agenda of certain groups is manifested in attacks such as these.

    >>Arent we suppose to be firm with the disbelievers and be mercifull to one another.

    belligerent with the disbelievers? well – no, actually, we must treat them with kindness just as the Qur’an states, and be firm with those who are firm with us… but still better to exercise patience.

    the media is very powerful, and is known to manipulate news, even broadcast lies. at this time the muslims should openly comdemn the attacks and ‘whoever’ committed them, whether they are Muslim or not.

  12. Ya Rab. May Allah have mercy on us and raise us to combat this cancer in our religion. I appreciate your post. I pray for the Muslims and non-Muslims there. In sha Allah, we can find a way to bring these actions to a halt. Perhaps if these people who claim to be Muslim took a little time to get to know their Prophet (S), they may cease to stop these kinds of crimes.

    Blog

  13. Salam alaikum Sidi,

    Between feeling emotion and anything beneficial there must be thought.

    So here’s something I hope can help.

    Faith demands the preservation of five things: religion, life, sense, honor, and property. In that order. Worldliness only demands the preservation of three: freedom, life, and property within a framework that denies the value of order. So next time some poor soul draws the conclusion that loss of property means a loss of freedom. And that a loss of freedom justifies the abandonment of honor to the extent that something as senseless as mass killing begins to make sense. And that senselessness drives him to take his own life along with innocent others in the name of (and in fact despite) his religion. Ask yourself which side he?s really on.

    Then ask yourself the same question.

    If what we’re seeing isn’t wahn then what is?

    With Peace,
    Qays

  14. Hi guys – and peace to all.
    My first ever visit to a Blog of any kind – I was just curious to read the views of our British Muslims in these unsettling times.

    Just to introduce myself, I’m a white, British confirmed agnostic, with a strong belief that, if there is a God of any kind, we’ll be rewarded simply for the way we treat our fellow beings. Live well, live thoughtfully and considerately and see what fate awaits us!

    I also feel it worth mentioning that I’m an avid Liberal, who despises Bush and who has turned his back on Blair’s Labour party following the ill-judged invasion of Iraq.

    Anyway, the point of my message is this. Whilst I can’t deny the existence of far too many ignorant racist bigots who would love to see a White Britain, it’s vital to remember that our Country is home to millions of people just like me. Millions who abhor the injustices perpetrated around the world by self-interested Western Powers. Millions who did not and would not vote for Blair in the wake of the Iraq fiasco. Millions who do not deserve to be murdered.

    We don’t all think that a British life is worth more than the life of an Iraqi or an Afghan – I suppose things just come in to sharper focus when it’s happening on your doorstep.

    So I must take issue with postings suggesting that we’ve brought this upon ourselves. In no way do I, or millions of my fellow Brits, deserve to become “collateral damage”.

    Stay happy,
    S.

  15. Good to read so many thoughtful comments on the subject. I read a comment on another blog site that challenges moderate Muslims to do more than just wring their hands and say, “Oh, so sorry.” I thought y’all might enjoy reading this fellow’s comments. Here it is:

    “Why don’t all you sob sisters run a full page ad in the New York Times? I’m sure that will stop terrorism. The only thing that will stop terrorism is to kill them, kill their leaders, and put enough of them in jail until it is possible for people like you to actually stand up and DO something. The situation is not different than the German one in the late 20s when Nazi thugs roamed the streets beating up anyone who stood in their way. When they finally took over they killed everyone who dared stand up. Right now there is a huge group of terrorist thugs contaminating Islam and nobody will openly challenge them. You are afraid of your own children, especially the young men.

    Wake me when you decide to ACT.”

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