‘Terrorists stoking hatred against Muslims’
● King of Jordan’s envoy warns that attacks will turn world against Islam
Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan, one of the world’s leading Muslim scholars, told the 2017 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland that terrorist propaganda will succeed in making Muslims “even more hated than they currently are by most of the world”.
Prince Ghazi, who gave a major hard-hitting speech in the presence of the Princess Royal representing the Queen at the Kirk assembly in Edinburgh, began by condemning the Manchester terrorist attack, saying terrorists did not represent Muslims.
“Let me start by condemning in the strongest possible terms in my name and in the name of his majesty King Abdullah II, these terror attacks of innocent young people,” said Prince Ghazi, who is King Abdullah II of Jordan’s personal envoy.
0 Prince Ghazi of Jordan, at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, outlines his world vision
“We are particularly appalled to see them pretend to represent our religion. Obviously they do not.
“I believe they will find this country is made of stronger stuff than they might ever imagine.”
The prince, who works to promote better understanding between Muslims and Christians and has been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize, outlined his vision for the future including the “rise of global fundamentalist movements in all religions”, populism, extreme nationalism and xenophobia.
“Terrorist propaganda will succeed in making Muslims even more hated than they currently are by most of the world, and in some places Muslimswillbeininternment camps and other concentration camps,” he said.
He then referred to the founder of Islamic State as a “criminal”, Boko Haram as “lunatics” and warned of further Islamist radicalisation.
“We will of course continue to have a growth of radical fundamentalism in Islam.
“But we will also have an Islamisation of radicals – so that angry young people with little faith will use Islam as an outlet for their anger, in addition to Islamisation of criminals – such as the late Abu Mus’ab Al-zarqawi; the founder of IS – an Islamisation of lunatics, such as Boko Haram, and the Islamisation of really ignorant and gullible people , like most of the ‘lone wolf’ terrorists we see here in the West.”
Very Rev Professor Iain Torrance, a former Moderator, who has known Prince Ghazi for ten years, said: “His deeply learned and bleak speech underlines the risk to good relations between Christians and Muslims at a time of growing fundamentalisms, fanned by social media.
“With courteous and understated criticisms of populism and the travel ban against Muslims he urged us to broaden our visions and deepen our knowledge.”