Ameer Ali
Wonders will never cease. It's taken over twenty years but finally Muslim preachers have come out and admitted that radical groups are trashing the reputation of the entire Muslim community.
It must have been the last straw when the Daily Telegraph broke the story about Uthman Badar, the spokesman for the group Hizb ut-Tahrir, who was due to give a lecture at the Sydney Opera House entitled "Honour killings are morally justified."
Naturally, the general public was horrified and the lecture was quickly cancelled. The same group also preaches that it's morally okay to marry pre-teen girls and that the US and Australia are terrorist nations for invading Iraq and Afghanistan. Australians already know that's how Muslims feel, we've been told over and over, it's just more reasons to demonize Muslims.
The often divided Imams of Sydney and Melbourne have been loathe to criticize Hizt ut-Tahrir members but after all this time, the Australian National Imams Council has had a change of heart.
Doctor of Economics at Murdoch University and prominent Islamic leader Ameer Ali, former President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, said all Muslim groups, leaders and mosque preachers should be resoundingly denouncing the views of Hizb ut-Tahrir.
"But I don't hear it yet" he said. "I don't hear people coming out in sermons denouncing them. They need to do this and be at the forefront of demolishing these ideas." He went on "Indeed, most Muslims are horrified by what they are saying so why aren't the Council of Imams stopping them? That's surprising to me."
And it surprises me too Mr Ali. Could it be fear?
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