A leading Muslim cleric says that terror perpetrated by Muslims is derived from Islamic ideology, however skewed. These remarks seem to counter the theory of the Obama administration.

Al Azhar Mosque, part of Al Azhar University. (Photo: shutterstock)

Eminent Islamic cleric Ahmed el-Tayeb, blames the proliferation of Islamic terror on the misinterpretation of Muslim religious teachings, Arab Ahram Online reports.

“The most striking reason, that I see, is the historical accumulation of extremist tendencies… that grew out of corrupt interpretations of some texts in the Holy Quran and Sunnah [Prophet Mohamed’s teachings],” Al-Tayeb, Egypt’s most prominent Islamic cleric, declared.

Al-Tayeb explained that terror perpetrated by Muslims is derived from Islamic ideology, however skewed. These remarks seem to counter assertions by the Obama administration that the Islamic terror is derived from poverty, lack of leadership and unemployment.

Offering his solution to this global threat, Al-Tayeb said at an anti-terrorism conference in Mecca on Sunday that “control” is needed to counter the “chaos of [religious] rulings against other Muslims as infidels.” Otherwise, there will be “no hope” for the Islamic Ummah [nation, collective] to retrieve its unity, he stated.

President of Al-Azhar University, which was founded more than a thousand years ago, the Grand Sheikh called for educational reform and the introduction of a special instruction curriculum for correcting “false and ambiguous concepts.”

He emphasized the importance of tolerant discourse, Ahram reports.

As for the Islamic State (ISIS) terror organization, Al-Azhar said that no religion should accept such “barbaric” acts.

Al-Azhar is one of the first universities in the world, serving as the chief center of Arabic literature and Islamic study. The university has called for the killing and crucifixion of ISIS terrorists, expressing their outrage after ISIS burned to death a Jordanian pilot.

In a sense, Al-Tayeb is echoing the words of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, who recently called for a renewed vision of Islam. “It has reached the point that [this ideology] is hostile to the entire world. Is it conceivable that 1.6 billion [Muslims] would kill the world’s population of seven billion, so that they could live [on their own]. This is inconceivable,” al-Sisi declared in January.

Arab Coalition to Counter Muslim Terror?

The Arab world, like the West, is suffering from Islamic terror, which has generated regional instability.

Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab is forming a committee to study possible amendments to national security laws in order to remove websites linked to terrorism, cabinet spokesperson Hossam Kawish told Ahram last week.

Egypt has been battling a Jihadist militant insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula for almost a decade, Ahram continues, but the conflict has intensified over the past year. The Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis terror organization, which carried out several deadly attacks and has killed scores – mainly police and army personnel – pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS) last November.

Ahram adds that the Egyptian president on Monday called for a pan-Arab force to fight terrorism, most notably ISIS, which has taken over parts of Iraq and Syria and gained loyalists in other Arab countries, including Egypt and neighboring Libya.

The Egyptian Air Force attacked ISIS targets in Libya last week in retaliation for the ISIS beheading of  21 Christian Copt Egyptians.

By: United with Israel Staff

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