Scottish Religious Leaders Condemn Glasgow Attack
Religious leaders in Scotland have joined in a united condemnation of the recent attack on Glasgow Airport and foiled bomb plots in London last Friday.
by Maria Mackay
Posted: Tuesday, July 3, 2007, 13:01 (BST)
Religious leaders in Scotland have joined in a united condemnation of the recent attack on Glasgow Airport and foiled bomb plots in London last Friday.
Two men of Asian appearance drove a burning jeep into the main terminal doors of Glasgow Airport last Saturday, one day after two car bombs were foiled in Central London. One of the drivers of the green jeep Cherokee is under arrest in a Scottish hospital but remains in critical condition after sustaining severe burns.
A joint statement was released by leaders from across the faith spectrum, including the Muslim and Jewish communities, and the spiritual heads of the Church of Scotland and Roman Catholic Church in Scotland.
"We ... utterly condemn the recent attack on Glasgow airport and incidents in London, as we do all acts of terrorism and hope that the full force of the law will be brought to bear on those who perpetrate such violence against innocent people," said the leaders in the statement.
Police have described their investigation as "fast-moving". On Tuesday, the questioning continued of eight people suspected of involvement in the attacks, at least three of them doctors. One doctor, an Indian, has been detained by police in Australia, making this a truly international investigation.
Earlier on Tuesday, a controlled explosion was carried out on a car parked outside a mosque in Glasgow as part of the ongoing investigation into Saturday's airport attack.
They confirmed that the car was linked to the investigation on the other attacks on Glasgow Airport and in Central London and has since been removed from outside the mosque for closer forensic examination. The mosque itself, located in the Pollokshields area of Glasgow, has not been linked to the attacks.
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The comments below are readers' personal opinions and are in no way intended to reflect the editorial opinion of Christian Today.
Added: Wednesday, July 4, 2007, 4:08 (BST)
To whom it may concern,
There is a lot of concern about alienating moderate Muslims in the debate over how to deal with religious extremists. These moderates and their supporters insist that the religion of Islam has been hijacked by radical extremists. This sounds very odd to me after I have spent the last four years trying to find someone in the “moderate” Muslim community who can answer the following question that I put in a letter addressed to community leaders:
“Many people value and are involved in Islamic education. A challenge we face, however, is an objection being voiced in the media more frequently these days. It is that Islamic schools teach hatred of Christians and Jews. Americans who read the Quran do not have to read far before they encounter evidence for this.
‘Oh ye who believe! Take not the Jews and Christians for friends. They are friends to one another. He among you who taketh them for friends is (one) of them. Lo! Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk.’ Surah V, Ayat 51
Even if hatred were too strong a word for many, they would definitely think this verse taught disdain of, or at the very least, dislike for Christians and Jews. Based on your background and experience in Islamic education, how would you explain this ayat to a diverse immigrant and American population?”
No one has wanted to talk about the issue, preferring instead to take a head-in-the-sand approach to dealing with an idea that runs throughout all levels and sects of the Muslim community. However, the extremists are more than happy to take the same teaching and use it for all it is worth. When one team (moderates) in a game fails to show, they forfeit the game, and the other team (extremists) who took the issue and ran with it when the moderates were a no-show did not hijack or steal the game. Extremists win every time because the so-called moderates refuse to tackle difficult questions in the general Islamic ideology and interpretations of the Quran taught in Mosques all across the board.
Sincerely,
Mariam Jamil
Mariam Jamil, palo alto, USA
