Dr al Qutob claims that the Sydney gunman was a criminal, not a Muslim. This brings to mind the words of Tony Blair in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks when he claimed that the perpetrators were not Islamic terrorists, just “terrorists pure and simple”.
But by the time London was attacked in July 2005, Blair had changed his tune. In a speech to the Labour Party conference, and recounting by then 26 al-Qaeda episodes, he noted that the terrorists’ motivation was “a religious ideology, a strain within the worldwide religion of Islam, as far removed from its essential decency and truth as Protestant gunmen who kill Catholics or vice versa are from Christianity. But do not let us underestimate it or dismiss it. Those who kill in its name believe genuinely that in doing it, they do God’s work; they go to paradise”.
.... If Dr Al Qutob wishes to persuade the world that Islam is a peaceful religion he might do better to address the substantial number of his co-religionists around the world who clearly take a very different view to his on aggression and terrorism, rather than berating the media. [The Independent] Read more
