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Washington Post - May 14, 2004 Muslim group's petition calls terrorism un-Islamic By Caryle Murphy WASHINGTON -- A national Muslim advocacy group announced yesterday (5/13/4) that it is asking Muslims around the world to sign an online petition condemning terrorism as ''un-Islamic" and a betrayal of their faith. The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations said that its petition, titled ''Not in the Name of Islam," is ''designed to disassociate the faith of Islam from the violent acts of a few Muslims." The group noted that its initiative was announced two days after a videotape showing the decapitation of an American in Iraq ''shocked television viewers worldwide." The tape showed Nicholas Berg's masked assailant shouting ''God is great." ''I think it was so gruesome, and it disgusted all of us as Muslims," said the group's executive director, Nihad Awad. The online petition, posted on the group's website -- www.cair-net.org -- is a way for Muslims to demonstrate how they feel about Berg's killing, Awad added. The petition states that ''no injustice done to Muslims can ever justify the massacre of innocent people, and no act of terror will ever serve the cause of Islam." Those who sign ''repudiate and dissociate ourselves from any Muslim group or individual who commits such brutal and un-Islamic acts," the document reads. ''We refuse to allow our faith to be held hostage by the criminal actions of a tiny minority acting outside the teachings of both the Koran and the Prophet Mohammed." Names of people who sign the petition will not be posted on the website, said group spokesman Ibrahim Hooper, citing technical problems and a desire to keep abusive messages from appearing. But he added that the group will say periodically how many people have signed. The group and other Muslim organizations have been frustrated in recent years because their condemnations of terrorism, including the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have not been widely disseminated. |