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Doha:
Muslims around the world should exercise more tolerance,
patience and seize the opportunity to make Europe feel
"ashamed", a leading Bosnian religious figure said.
Mustafa Ceric, Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina, advised
against violently protesting outside western diplomatic
missions in Muslim countries to protest the Danish cartoons.
"I expect Muslims to be of higher moral standards. We should
not have turned violent and burnt embassies," he said.
"In Nigeria today 16 people were killed. In Libya you have
11 people dead. Why? This is more damaging than the
cartoons," he added, in reference to the demonstrations held
in both countries in the past two days, as well as many
other cities.
In Islam, the Mufti has the authority to issue religious
fatwa (edicts).
"We should take this opportunity to make Europe feel ashamed
and we have to benefit from that. And now, some Muslims have
to go to Europe to apologise for what they did for their
[European] embassies."
"We have to boycott the products of Denmark until Denmark
realises its mistake and comes and says the magic word:
Sorry," Ceric told Gulf News in an interview on the
sidelines of the three-day forum on relations between the US
and Muslim world.
The Danish government has announced it wouldn't apologise
for something it didn't do, while the paper, that was the
first to publish the cartoons, has apologised.
But later, many newspapers published the cartoons calling it
"freedom of expression".
"This cartoons have not decreased our respect for our
Prophet, but it didn't increase freedoms in Europe," Ceric
said.
Echoing the sentiments of other religious leaders Ceric
added the cartoons that were published in several European,
western and Asian publications, have "united all Muslims,
whether radicals or not". |
