‘Anti-Islam film meant to create confusion in Muslim World’

Salmaan bin Fahad al Awdah
Ebrahim Moosa
A senior Saudi scholar has warned of the risk of subversion in the protest action against a blasphemous anti-Muslim video currently gripping large parts of the Arab world. Writing on his official Facebook page, Dr. Salman bin Fahd Al-Awdah, a senior member of the International Union for Muslim Scholars who was formerly imprisoned by the Saudi regime, said foreign elements could capitalise on the images of chaos in Muslim countries to diminish the gains of the Arab Spring.

“These acts of abuse against our Prophet (peace be upon him) are carried out only to spread confusion and strife within Muslim countries, especially countries of the Arab Spring like Egypt. The perpetrators of that abuse hope to stir up trouble between the Muslims and Copts and undo the progress that has been made.”

He cautioned Muslims to behave appropriately and not hand their enemies a propaganda victory and excuses for further intervention. “They want to create crises to divide the country and show the rest of the world how unstable it is. We must counter these effects by all legitimate means.”

Al-Awdah said it was the duty of Muslims not merely to respond to, and refute the abuses made against the Prophet (peace be upon him), but also to persist in teaching non-Muslims about him, his noble character and teachings. “In this way we can dispel ignorance and neutralize the efforts of those who hate Islam and use the media to impose a false image of the Prophet on the world’s people,” he wrote. “We must not wait for abuses to take place. We must take the initiative and organize our efforts to convey the beauty of the Prophet’s life to the nations of the world.”

In what has been interpreted as a blunt warning, American President Barack Obama on Thursday said he considered the Egypt of Mohammed Morsi to be neither a US-ally or enemy. Obama indicated that he would judge the nascent government in Cairo based on its response to the assault on the American Embassy there, which occurred on Monday.

“Certainly in this situation what we’re going to expect is that they are responsive to our insistence that our embassy is protected, our personnel is protected,” Obama added, speaking of ‘big problems’ if the USA deemed Egypt not to be behaving responsibly.

US officials have confirmed that a special unit of roughly 50 members of the Marine Corps had been dispatched to Libya to reinforce troops guarding diplomats there, and two warships were already headed to the Libyan coast. A senior U.S. official also told CNN that U.S. unmanned surveillance drones were expected to begin flying over Benghazi and other locations in eastern Libya in the wake of the unrest.

ebmoosa@ciibroadcasting.com
http://www.ciibroadcasting.com/

Comments

Popular posts from this blog