Prominent Islamic scholar Sheikh Yousuf al-Qaradawi yesterday denounced the recent violent attacks against Christians in Muslim countries, saying that most of these attacks were mainly due to “ignorance rather than intolerance” on the part of Muslims.

“According to the Qur’an, Muslims should not depart from justice even with those who hate them or to whom Muslims have aversion,” Qaradawi told a congregation at the Omar bin al-Khattab Mosque at Khalifa South town.

“No Muslim has the right to decide the result of the differences between the world’s religions. These differences would be only decided by Allah on the Doomsday as stated by the Qur’an,” he said.

“In both the first and the last verse of the Holy Qur’an, Allah was mentioned as the God of all people irrespective of their faiths,” he added.

Referring to the recent killing of six Coptic Christians in Upper Egypt, Qaradawi branded the accused as a “thug”.

“The man who attacked Christians was motivated by revenge rather than religion since revenge is a deeply rooted tradition both among Muslims and Christians,” the scholar added. “It is not true that brotherhood is only between the faithful of the same religion. It can also exist between those of the same country as is the case with Egyptian Christians who are part of the country’s original people.”

Qaradawi also criticised the arson attacks by Muslims on churches in Malaysia, which were prompted by a controversy over the use of the Arabic word “Allah” by Christians.

“Allah is the God of all people on earth. Muslims are not fanatics but sometimes ignorance of the real Islam leads them to be so,” he added.

About the sectarian violence in Nigeria, he blamed it on “inter-class conflicts”, saying that it was more of a revolution by the poor against the rich rather than religious strife.   »»» AINA

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