Inside look at the problem of Islamic deviation

Read this article for an inside look at how Islam is not the problem, the problem is distortion of Islamic teachings by extremists:

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=104214&d=2&m=12&y=2007


Naif Asks Scholars to Fight DeviantsP.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News

JEDDAH, 2 December 2007 — Interior Minister Prince Naif has urged Islamic scholars, especially prayer leaders in mosques, to play a greater role in the Kingdom’s efforts to eliminate terrorism and extremism.

In comments published yesterday, Prince Naif said imams and khateebs were not doing enough to discourage militancy among Saudi youth, including those who travel to Iraq to fight alongside insurgents.

Last June, Prince Naif held a meeting with the imams and khateebs across the country and sought their support in fighting the deviant ideology that has been used to recruit Saudi youth to Al-Qaeda.

Asked if he felt there had been any progress since that meeting, the minister said: “No, not at the level I would have hoped for.”

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“There are those who have done their job and those who have still to step up, and that includes religious scholars, intellectuals and the media,” Prince Naif said. “But as for preachers, there has to be an ideological effort that is strong enough to refute the falsehoods and tell people the truth about Islam,” he added.

snip

“By focusing on the security approach, the state has eliminated the visible threat by foiling a series of attacks,” said Sheikh Mohsen Al-Awaji, a prominent Saudi scholar. “But the latent threat is there, and it is a big one. There is no guarantee that (the crackdown) will always succeed” unless accompanied by an effort to “confront the deviant thinking” of the militants.

Awaji said the Kingdom needs to “mobilize the whole society” in order to defeat the militants’ ideology of “takfeer” — branding other Muslims as infidels in order to legitimize violence against them.

“The state has achieved results that were beyond expectations by doing this in prisons,” he said, referring to the government-appointed “advice committee” that reportedly convinced 1,500 detained militants to change their ways.

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Westerners who are so entranced with secularism, the banishing of God from the public square, and libertine freedoms will not even comprehend this article. The Kingdom is having to provide a theological solution, while so many Western liberals think that there is no such thing as a theological solution.

God Bless the Saudi efforts!