Condemning Isil should not morph into an obligation to apologise for being Muslim

This is not a piece I envisaged I would ever write. Isil is not a subject that dominates my family dinner table or chats with friends and colleagues. As a young journalist I have privately vowed never to take up the mantle of “voice of my generation” or to act as a spokesperson for British Muslims or Islam.

In truth, I spent my evenings this week worrying about whether or not Chelsea would win their opening Champions League game rather than fretting over the strategic implications of the latest beheading video to come out of Raqqa. The actions of the self-styled Islamic State are so divorced from the banal realities of my life that news from Syria and Iraq becomes just another grim headline when I come into The Telegraph office every morning.

They are neither a “state” nor proponents of any vision of Islam that I have ever encountered. Indeed, I still most identify the word Isis, as we used to call Islamic State, with the river I first encountered during my freshers’ week at Oxford.

The terms “jihadi” and “jihadist”, meanwhile, have been appropriated to label the likes of the murderer “Jihadi John” and his fellow thugs. But my jihad is no millenarian fight for a Caliphate. My jihad, which means struggle, is to wake up on time for work, to squeeze my prayers in, and make sure I speak to my mum at least three times a week.

Every day, myself and others who wear outward manifestations of our faith face a small jihad to convince people, on first meeting, that we don’t harbour extremist tendencies and that we are not oppressed (except perhaps by a devotion to Premier League football). On the whole, I think we manage to succeed pretty well.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11106474/Its-a-shame-we-must-have-NotIn...

Almost all Muslim political and religious leaders condemned the attacks. The leaders vehemently denouncing the attacks included the leaders of Egypt (Hosni Mubarak), the Palestinian Authority (Yasser Arafat), Libya (Muammar Gaddafi), Syria (Bashar al-Assad), Iran (Mohamed Khatami) and Pakistan (Pervez Musharraf).
The sole exception was Iraq, when the then-president Saddam Hussein, said of the attacks that "the American cowboys are reaping the fruit of their crimes against humanity".Saddam would later offer sympathy to the Americans killed in the attacks.

Clerics in Pakistani mosques condemned the attacks

Clerics in Yemini mosques heavily denounced the attacks and labelled     them as "cowardly" and "un-Islamic".

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak vehemently denounced the attacks.
In Libya, Muammar Gaddafi condemned the attacks.
Bashar al-Assad also condemned the attacks.
Saddam Hussein offered his sympathy for the victims and Americans killed in the attacks.
Many Jordanians signed letters of sympathy.
Kuwaitis lined up to donate blood.
Iranians who gathered for a soccer match in Tehran observed a moment of silence.
Lebanese generals signed and sent letters of sympathy.
Turkey ordered all of its flags at half-mast.


Renowned Muslim scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi denounced the attacks and the unprovoked killings of thousands of American civilians as a "heinous crime" and urged Muslims to donate blood to the victims.

The alleged Hezbollah "spiritual mentor" and Lebanese Shia cleric Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah condemned the attacks.

Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, harshly condemned and denounced the attacks and also stated that he was not interested in exporting such attacks to the United States, however he criticized the "unfair American position".

    Afghanistan's Taliban rulers condemned the attacks, but vehemently rejected suggestions that Osama bin Laden, who had been given asylum in Afghanistan, could be behind them.

Huge crowds attended candlelit vigils in Iran, and 60,000 spectators observed a minute's silence at Tehran football stadium.

The Sahrawi national liberation movement Polisario Front condemned the "criminal attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the USA and, particularly, against defenceless innocent civilians".