Sheikh Nassr Farid Wassel, Egypt's Mufti, called Friday upon Muslims to refute the "Zionist" notion that Islam permits terrorism, reports said.
Sheikh Wassel was quoted by state-run MENA press agency as saying that “the international Zionists are trying to mislead the non-Muslim world through their media by saying that ‘Islam is a terrorist religion.’”
“The Zionists focus all efforts to symbolize Islam with the terrorism concept, using the pretense that jihad (holy war) in Islam is based on fighting,” the agency quoted him as saying, as cited by AFP.
The remarks of Egypt’s grand mufti were made while inaugurating an Islamic center in a village in the southern Egyptian region of Nubia.
"It is necessary for Muslims to correct the idea which confuses jihad in Islam with terrorism," the mufti said, explaining that fighting in God's name was legitimate to defend oneself or the nation, but that acts of terrorism were forbidden.
The issue of Islam vis-à-vis terrorism has been in the spotlight since the September 11 terror attack on the US and the subsequent US-led war against Afghanistan.
Muslim most respected cleric have denounced the attacks as against the spirit of Islam and Western leaders have repeatedly stressed that their war is against terrorism, not Islam– Albawaba.com
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