The horrific events in Nigeria, where more than 100 Muslims were slaughtered at Friday prayers, could scarcely have better demonstrated the point Pope Francis was making thousands of kilometres away in Turkey. His message – that defeating extremism requires interfaith dialogue and an end to religious discrimination – is as true in Nigeria as it is in Turkey, Syria and Iraq. Or anywhere else for that matter.
Pope Francis met with Mehmet Gormez, Turkey’s top cleric, to discuss his view that religious justification for violence must be condemned by all religious leaders, whether Muslim or Christian. On the day, both religious leaders would probably have thought that their message applied primarily to the ISIL-controlled areas of Syria and Iraq, just over Turkey’s southern border. Instead, it was the predominantly Muslim north of faraway Nigeria that illustrated the urgent need to prevent extremists from using religion as an excuse for their brutality.
Boko Haram, the group suspected of responsibility for Friday’s carnage, is seeking to create a hardline Islamic state in Nigeria, where the population of 174 million is roughly evenly split between Muslims and Christians. For any group that claims religious goals, to slaughter co-religionists as they pray is not just horrific; it is a perversion of Islam.
The timing of the attack on the mosque, which is attached to the palace of Muhammad Sanusi II, the Emir of Kano and Nigeria’s second most senior Muslim cleric, is instructive. The emir had urged civilians to take up arms against Boko Haram just a few days ago.
His call to arms is obviously strategic self-defence. ISIL, Boko Haram and other extremist militants employ violence as an offensive measure to enforce their twisted view of Islam.
The pope could never have foreseen that his message would be so tragically illustrated by the events in Kano.
