The Imam of the grand mosque in Mecca Sheikh Saleh Bin Mohammed Bin Ibrahim All Talib on Saturday strongly condemned the terrorist attacks in Brussels, India and other places in the world and said Islam was not involved in such violence and also denounced the elements who using name of Islam were only defaming the peaceful religion.
“This is not the Islam which is today projected as terrorist. Islam from its inception preached peace and equality and we are totally against terrorism. The terrorism has caused more harm to Muslims around the world as well as Saudi Arabia. Today the world is undergoing a situation of war and tyranny and it can be eliminated only through the lessons of Islam,” said the Imam at a press conference here.
To a question Imam said, “Terrorism has no religion. There are historical evidences that it was born in the Western world. But now it is wrongly propagated that it has anything to do with Islam. It has nothing to do with Islam even if some people known as Muslims are involved in it.” The cleric further said, “It is very surprising and shocking that only Islam is being defamed if some Muslims are caught in terrorist act. But many other religions too had been involved in terrorism however, those religions were never defamed. In many Muslim countries terrorists have struck and involved in mayhem .”
The Imam said as per its teachings Islam takes guarantee of human lives, properties, dignity and honour and the religion, Islam as well as other religions. He said that Saudi Arabia and its monarch were extending help to all the countries needing help without any discrimination. “Saudi Arabia is the country for all the Muslims living anywhere in globe and we follow moderate Islam based on justice and equality. We are serving the humanity and this is the place which is preaching peace for the last over 1400 years.
The Imam however refused to take questions on fatwa of Darul Uloom, Deoband on the chanting of Bharat Mata ki jai and declined to speak about Prime Minister Narendra Modi who incidentally landed in Saudi Arabia on Saturday.
Earlier a message from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was read out in which he requested the Imam to pray in the grand mosque for the peace and prosperity in India and Bihar.