Qaradawi delivering the sermon yesterday
By Ayman Adly/Staff Reporter
Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi yesterday rejected the French parliament’s call for Turkey to admit that Ottoman Turks had committed genocide against Armenians in the early 20th century.
“We support the stand of Turkey,” he said in his Friday sermon at Imam Mohamed Ibn Abdul Wahab Mosque while adding that Islam does not allow the extermination of people.
Qaradawi said this accusation was a manipulation of history and it was not the job of parliaments to judge history.
He called for unity of Arabs and Muslims and praised the steps taken by the Palestinian factions to overcome their differences and stand united against the common enemy.
The Islamic scholar lauded Saudi King Abdullah’s call for the GCC states to “move beyond the stage of co-operation and into the stage of unity in a single entity”. He considered this as an obligatory religious duty and a necessity.
Qaradawi wondered why these countries did not unite and have a strong army, powerful economy and one currency for they had the potential for this. He explained how Europeans overcame their differences and conflicts to form the European Union.
He warned against sectarianism and exploiting sectarian differences to spread divisions among people to cover up for corruption and abuse of power.
Qaradawi expressed his happiness that Islamists were winning at the polls in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt and said he expected this would happen also in Syria and Libya. However, he welcomed secularists who were friendly to Islam and said that liberals, secularists, Islamists and others could work together for the public good so long as they were not hostile to religion.
The Islamic scholar praised the process of the elections in Egypt and the people who turned up enthusiastically for the polls. However, he said action had to be taken to bring those accused of violence against protesters to justice.
Though Qaradawi hailed the Arab League initiative to end violence in Syria, he expressed his disappointment at the daily rise in casualties among the people. He said: “We are with the Syrian people not the ruler.” He also praised the endurance of the revolutionaries in Syria and said the people would win ultimately. Tyrants and oppressors would inevitably vanish, he added.
Related Story