The Hindu Business Line : <I>Call a World Islamic Meet </I>

Maulvis and divines steeped in the Holy Quran, the Sharia and the tenets of Islam contained in various decrees and pronouncements down the centuries have been emphatic in declaring Islam to be a religion of peace, tolerance and goodwill towards human beings of whatever religious persuasion and extolling Allah as being most merciful and compassionate.

Indeed, the root of the word Islam itself denotes peace, and concepts derived from it also lay stress on kindness, helpfulness, solace, harmony and so on. There are passages in the Quran which, if read out without disclosing the source, may be taken as coming from the holy scripture of any religion.

Every time terrorist attacks occur, prominent Muslims have unfailingly pointed out that killing of innocents goes against the commandments of Allah and the Prophet, and those who indulge in such carnage actually violate the sacred teachings of the Prophet who wanted true Muslims to go to the protection of those in danger and not themselves take out the lives of others.

There are writings by Muslim scholars deploring the great damage done to the image of Islam by misguided fanatics wrongly construing such words as kafirs as enemies of Islam and jihad as the war on infidels. They say that a kafir simply refers to a person who may be outside the faith but who has every right to choose his path to salvation and jihad only means a struggle for the moral and spiritual elevation, both of oneself and of the society.

Considering that every outrage committed by Islamist terrorists affects the image of the religion, is it not time a world Islamic conference was convened by eminent Muslim savants and respected public figures of all sects to come out with a categorical and authentic interpretation of the much-maligned words, a ringing reaffirmation of the character and essence of Islam and an unambiguous condemnation of terrorism as a barbaric betrayal of all that Islam stands for?

B. S. RAGHAVAN