In Muslim communities around the world, worshipers gathered at mosques for their first Friday prayers since Hamas militants attacked Israel, sparking the ongoing war. Some imams have launched fiery appeals of support for the Palestinians. Others lamented the loss of civilian lives on both sides and called for peace.
In their sermons, prominent imams from France and Greece denounced the violence that has ravaged Israel and the Gaza Strip and called for peace.
The imam of the Grand Mosque of Paris, Abdennour Tahraoui, deplored the “tragic news” resulting from a war “which left thousands dead and injured on both sides”.
“Civilians were deliberately targeted,” he said. “It is our duty to condemn these acts and show our solidarity with all the innocent victims.”
He also called for calm in France, which has the largest Muslim population in Western Europe.
“It is imperative to avoid provocations, or even confrontations, towards communities of different religions and beliefs, so that we can live in peace and harmony in France,” Tahraoui said.
Sidi Mohammad Zakim, the imam of the Athens mosque, made similar calls in his sermon.
“We don’t want violence, we don’t want war. We want peace and I wish Allah peace in the whole world,” Sidi Mohammad Zaki told the AP after Friday prayers. “Let everyone believe what they want.”
“This carnage must stop, because what is the fault of a little child, on one side or the other?” added Zaki. “What is the fault of a woman? Of an old person? Why do they play with these souls.
—By Leftaris Pitarkis in Athens
Across the United States, Muslims going to mosques to pray heard sermons about the war unfolding in the Middle East and raised money for humanitarian aid in Gaza.
In the Brooklyn neighborhood of New York, imam Mohamed Elbar, calling for calm, denounced Israeli attacks and the cessation of supplies to the Gaza Strip – the latter which he later described as a war crime. Images of the Palestinian flag and children amid destroyed buildings appeared on a large screen in the mosque.
“The children of Palestine deserve to live like any other child in any part of the world,” Elbar said.
Zein Ramawi, one of the mosque’s leaders who arrived in the United States four decades ago from the West Bank, said he worries about his loved ones back home.
“The only thing we can do is pray for them…ask God to help our brothers in Palestine. »
In the Washington suburbs, Imam Farhan Siddiqi of the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center delivered an impassioned sermon on the plight of Palestinians living under Israeli bombardment.
The Israeli army ordered the evacuation of northern Gaza on Friday.
“Evacuate to where?” » Siddiqi asked the Israeli government. “Where do you want them to go?” You have created an open-air prison. …You control all the exits and tell them to leave?
By the end of the service, the community had raised more than $16,000 of its $20,000 goal to send humanitarian aid to Gaza.
“We will continue to respond, we will continue to grow, we will continue to be positive and we will continue to contribute because that is the way of the Muslim,” Siddiqi said.
In Michigan, Imam Sohail Chaudhry of the Islamic Society of Greater Lansing first explained the importance of the Holy Land to Muslims before speaking out on the latest conflict, condemning violence against all innocents.
“The root cause of this problem is more than 50 years of oppression, illegal occupation, illegal settlements,” Chaudhry said. “You must give them back the land of the Palestinian people; you must give them back their human dignity.”
He urged Muslims in America to speak out against oppression, even if it has consequences in the United States, and to be patient, pray and not lose hope.
In Minneapolis, Jaylani Hussein told more than 100 young people gathered for the Muslim Student Association’s Friday prayers at a Lutheran church that they have a unique role to play.
“We are America’s Muslim population — we have a responsibility to ensure that this country, and our taxes, are not used to eliminate our brothers and sisters,” said Hussein, director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Minnesota . chapter, who was invited to speak to students at the University of Minnesota.
Freshman Idhil Mohamed took Hussein’s message to heart to denounce the violence Israel inflicts on Palestinians. “They’re just kids. And that tells us in our religion: children should never be killed,” she said.
Home to U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, the first Muslim woman in the U.S. House of Representatives, Minnesota has a large Muslim community with a rapidly growing number of refugees from war-torn Somalia.
—Luis Andres Henao, Tiffany Stanley, Mariam Fam and Trisha Ahmed
In a sermon broadcast on Egyptian television, Ayman Abou Omar stressed the importance of being aware of the value of the homeland and maintaining security.
“The dangers are great, the challenges grave,” he said, urging Egyptians to unite behind their state, their leaders and their army.
“Without security, there is no state,” he said.
He prayed for the Egyptians, their army and their president, and asked God to help the Palestinians and help them preserve their land.
Egypt, which made peace with Israel decades ago. has long served as a regional mediator.
—Mariam Fam of AP’s Global Religion Team
In the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, a cleric from the pro-Taliban Red Mosque implored God to send special help to the Palestinians.
“Oh Allah, destroy Israel!” Break it into pieces,” urged Abdul Aziz in a moving sermon delivered to around 900 worshipers gathered for Friday prayers.
The mosque has ties to the Pakistani Taliban and is known to support calls to help the Afghan Taliban across the border. In July 2007, government forces besieged the mosque in a military crackdown that killed at least 100 people.
On Friday, the cleric asked God to help all those who wanted to join the jihad, or holy war, in the Palestinian territories.
“Oh Allah, make it easy for them and bless us with a martyr’s death,” he said, his voice booming through the speakers.
Similar sermons took place in mosques across the country. And radical Islamist parties have held anti-Israel rallies after Friday prayers.
Pakistan does not have diplomatic relations with Israel due to the issue of Palestinian statehood.
— Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Pakistan
Indonesia’s Islamic leaders have called on all mosques in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country to pray for the peace and security of the Palestinian people.
The president of the Council of Indonesian Mosques had urged all mosques to perform the Qunut Nazilahto prayer, a prayer of protection, to ask for God’s help so that “the conflict in the Gaza Strip ends quickly.”
The call from the country’s former vice president, Jusuf Kalla, joins that of most Indonesian Muslims, who stand with the Palestinians. The prayer took place at the same time as Salat Al-Ghaib, or prayer for the absent.
In a sermon at Abu Bakar Al Shidiq, one of Jakarta’s most conservative mosques, a cleric called for mobilizing “our power and efforts to help the Muslims of Palestine.”
“Prayer is a weapon for devout Muslims,” he added. “For those of us who have not been given the opportunity by God to take up arms to defend the honor and religion of our Muslim brothers, we can then take up our arms by raising our hands to ask God for his blessings.”
— Niniek Karmini and Edna Tarigan, Jakarta, Indonesia
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