Anti-terror trip
New bid to influence youngsters
Forty Muslims who attend a Rutherglen Mosque travelled to England this week for an “anti-terror” training camp.
Following recent terror attacks, Minhaj-ul-Quran International UK are trying to tackle the methods used to lure young British Muslims to extremism.
Forty Muslims who attend a Rutherglen Mosque travelled to England this week for an “anti-terror” training camp.
Following recent terror attacks in Barcelona, London and Manchester, a leading moderate British Muslim organisation, Minhaj-ul-Quran International UK, are trying to directly tackle the “theological misconceptions” used to lure young British Muslims to extremism.
The training camp, held at Keele University in Staffordshire on Saturday, August 26, claims to have equipped 500 attendees with the necessary theological tools in order to counter the narrative of ISIS and similar groups in their respective communities and online.
Shaykh Rehan Raza Al-Azhari, of the Minhaj-ul-Quran International on Greenhill Road, Rutherglen, said: “It’s our religious and moral duty to speak out against those individuals who have manipulated and distorted the peaceful message of Islam for their own political agenda.
“This equipped the young participants with the theological and ideological arguments to counter the so called Jihadi narrative, which has caused severe damage to the image of Islam and allowed them to make positive contributions to the wider British society.”
The three-day residential camp – ‘Al-Hidayah 2017’ – tackled head-on some of the fundamental ideas that form the ideological pathway to extremism including misconstrued theological ideas about ‘Jihad’ and the misinterpretation of the Qur’anic verses of the ‘sword,’ used by extremists to justify their violence.
It also hoped to clarified the concept of establishing a global Caliphate for Muslims. A leading Muslim scholar, Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, was the keynote speaker who trained the young Muslims to recognise extremist narratives on jihad in their own communities.
Dr Qadri launched a comprehensive “counter-terrorism curriculum” in June 2015 which is being taught at numerous mosques across the UK.
He said: “I have announced an intellectual and spiritual war against extremism and terrorism.
“It is vital to train young people how ISIS and other groups are giving them the wrong interpretations of Islamic concepts such as jihad.”