Egypt's al-Sisi, Other Muslims Speak Out Against Islamic Terrorism
In wake of Charlie Hebdo massacre Muslims are speaking out against religious extremism and terrorism.
In his USA Today column, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit notes the Muslim pushback against religious extremism:
The most significant criticism of Islam in past weeks came not from traditional critics in Europe, but from inside the Islamic world itself, in the form of a speech, little-reported in the West, by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to Muslim clerics in Egypt. It was, as Roger Simon notes, a call for "a long overdue virtual ecclesiastical revolution in Islam."…
So it is not merely Western critics who believe that Islamic fundamentalism is damaging and endangering the place of Islam in the world, but the Muslim leader of the most populous Arab nation. Al-Sisi underscored his words by visiting a Coptic Christmas mass, something that no other Egyptian president has ever done.
Reynolds quotes from al-Sisi's speech:
"That thinking — I am not saying 'religion' but 'thinking' — that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It's antagonizing the entire world!
"Is it possible that 1.6 billion people (Muslims) should want to kill the rest of the world's inhabitants — that is 7 billion — so that they themselves may live? Impossible! … I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution….
Related: 46 Examples of Muslim Outrage About the Paris Shooting. Sample:
The Muslim Council of Britain condemns this attack. Whomever the attackers are, and whatever the cause may be, nothing justifies the taking of life…. Dr Shuja Shafi, Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain said: "Nothing justifies the taking of life. Those who have killed in the name of our religion today claim to be avenging the insults made against Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace. But nothing is more immoral, offensive and insulting against our beloved Prophet than such a callous act of murder. Our thoughts, prayers and solidarity go to the families of the victims and the people of France."