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April 10, 2006

European Imams Pledge To Work Toward Showing Islam Compatible With Western Values

Topics: Understanding Islam

in a meeting sponsored by Austria as the current president of the European Union, more than 130 Muslim leaders from across the continent agreed that Islamic theologians in Europe must do more to establish that their faith does not clash with Western values.

(...) The declaration published yesterday amounted to a catalog of homegrown moderate views that Western politicians have been urging Muslim leaders to draw up as a bulwark against radical Islamic ideologies from the Middle East.

(...) "We have shown how to protect ourselves from fatwas from other countries," he said. "We have fatwas from imams living in Europe, and they speak for themselves."

(...) Imams, who lead Friday prayers in mosques, play an important role in Islam because the faithful often ask their advice on what the religion allows or forbids Muslims to do.

(...) Among the practical steps they sought were Islamic arguments against immigrants' isolating themselves in self-made ghettos, refusing to integrate or rejecting the separation of church and state in Western democracies.

(...) Imams also should show that violations of women's rights -- through forced marriages, female circumcision and "honor killings" -- were rooted in traditions from outside Europe and not justified by Islam, they said.

Sounds good, however, without intending to cast a shadow on what appears to be positive steps on the part of the European Muslim community to speak out against the jihadists, we will have to wait and see if this is al-taqiya (deceit, lips on a pig, a new face on the radical views predominant within a large sector of certain Muslim communities) or is this finally - the true reform in Islam that we in the West have been looking to emerge from Muslim moderates.

Suggested reading: Walid Phares, " AL-TAQIYA...The Muslim Method Of Conquest"

Posted by Richard at April 10, 2006 7:51 AM

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