Moderate values key for youth of Islam

Egyptian scholar says the undoing of extremism lies with proper schooling and guidance of young minds.

ABU DHABI // In the fight against extremist and terrorist ideology in Islam, no tool is more important than teaching Muslim youth moderate values from an early age, according to a prominent Egyptian Islamic figure.

The Egyptian minister of religious endowments, or Awqaf, Mohammed Mokhtar Gomaa, was speaking at an Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies lecture in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday titled Deconstructing Extremist Ideology.

“If a young person has no concept of Islam they become targets for, and can be more easily influenced by, those who teach a more radical interpretation of the religion,” said Prof Gomaa, who is also a dean at Al Azhar University, Egypt’s oldest degree-granting university and one of the highest authorities on the teaching of Islam.

He said that instilling a sound teaching of non-violent Islam in children by all individuals and entities involved in their upbringing was required to ward off any appeal of radicals.

“Religious institutes cannot do this alone. We need a combined effort from the educational, cultural and media institutes,” said Prof Gomaa, who is also the chairman of the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs and the Forum on Tolerance and Moderation.

He said the western media also had a key role to play in lessening the appeal of extremist groups in the region.

“Western media outlets need to call these groups what they are. It is not the Islamic State, but the ‘terrorist group known as the Islamic State’,” he said.

Referring to similar groups such as Al Qaeda and Boko Haram as terrorist would help lessen the appeal of these organisations for western Muslim youth, Prof Gomaa said.

The beginning of the end for these groups was near, he said as no groups who rule by force and harm people can continue ruling, and no heaven awaits them.

Referring to a Hadith about a woman who went to hell because she starved a cat to death because she forgot about it, Prof Gomaa said: “How could people who burn people to death, rape, torture and loot think they are going to heaven?”

Prof Gomaa added that providing justice and religious freedoms and meeting needs for citizens were essential in keeping stability.

“Islam tells you to do certain things but these are all between you and Allah,” he said.

Groups that propagate the banning of statues and pictures and destroy artefacts are wrong in their interpretation of Islam, he said.

When asked by one of the audience if people should try to spread peaceful systems, like that of the UAE, under the banner of a caliphate to make the region stronger through unification, Prof Gomaa said the desire for an Umma (Islamic nation) was antiquated.

“The reality today is completely different from that in the region centuries ago. The citizens of countries should focus on supporting their own country,” he said.

“As long as there is a good relationship between the people and their leaders, there is no room for violence to grow.”