By ABDEL RAHMAN AL-RASHED
Arabic TV chief
IT is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists. But it is equally certain — and exceptionally painful — that almost all terrorists are Muslims.
The hostage-takers of children in Beslan were Muslims. The hostage-takers and murderers of the Nepalese chefs and workers in Iraq were also Muslims. Those involved in rape and murder in Darfur, Sudan, are Muslims.
Those responsible for the attacks on residential towers in Riyadh and Khobar were Muslims. The two women who crashed two airliners last week were also Muslims.
Bin Laden is a Muslim. The majority of those who manned the suicide bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses and buildings, all over the world, were Muslims.
In a different era we considered extremists a menace and a source of corruption because of their adoption of violence.
At that time, the mosque used to be a haven and the voice of religion used for peace and reconciliation. Then came the Neo-Muslims.
An innocent and benevolent religion, whose verses prohibit the felling of trees in the absence of urgent necessity, that calls murder the most heinous of crimes, that says explicitly if you kill one person you have killed humanity, has been turned into a global message of hate.
We can’t call those who take schoolchildren as hostages our own. We cannot tolerate in our midsts those who abduct journalists, murder civilians, explode buses. These are the people who have smeared Islam and stained its images.
ABDEL Rahman al-Rashed, general manager of the Al-Arabiya news channel, delivered his attack on the terrorists who have shamed Islam in the newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat.
Arabic TV chief
IT is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists. But it is equally certain — and exceptionally painful — that almost all terrorists are Muslims.
The hostage-takers of children in Beslan were Muslims. The hostage-takers and murderers of the Nepalese chefs and workers in Iraq were also Muslims. Those involved in rape and murder in Darfur, Sudan, are Muslims.
Those responsible for the attacks on residential towers in Riyadh and Khobar were Muslims. The two women who crashed two airliners last week were also Muslims.
Bin Laden is a Muslim. The majority of those who manned the suicide bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses and buildings, all over the world, were Muslims.
In a different era we considered extremists a menace and a source of corruption because of their adoption of violence.
At that time, the mosque used to be a haven and the voice of religion used for peace and reconciliation. Then came the Neo-Muslims.
An innocent and benevolent religion, whose verses prohibit the felling of trees in the absence of urgent necessity, that calls murder the most heinous of crimes, that says explicitly if you kill one person you have killed humanity, has been turned into a global message of hate.
We can’t call those who take schoolchildren as hostages our own. We cannot tolerate in our midsts those who abduct journalists, murder civilians, explode buses. These are the people who have smeared Islam and stained its images.
ABDEL Rahman al-Rashed, general manager of the Al-Arabiya news channel, delivered his attack on the terrorists who have shamed Islam in the newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat.
