A Cape Town cleric who on Friday delivered a scathing sermon against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria group, said he did so not only to alert parents on the dangers of recruiting by such groups but also to make Muslims aware of the fact that such groups do not represent Islam. Sheikh Muhammad Moerat of the Zeenatul Islam Masjid on Friday told the congregation to “spread peace” as was the message of the first public sermon by the prophet Muhammed.
Moerat was one of a number of ulema in the Western Cape who focused the Friday sermon on the ISIS phenomenon, following a call by the Muslim Judicial Council last week. Moerat said Muslims and their clerics have a responsibility to educate themselves and others on the true nature of Islam, and how ISIS opposes the teachings thereof.
“Once people are truly educated [on] what [ISIS] stands for and if they believe what media reports say about them and what they do; then anybody who knows and understands the objectives of Islam, Sharia and other tenets of the religion will not be able to support them,” Moerat said.
He said he is happy that he has not yet come across any individuals who profess to support ISIS openly in South Africa. But he explained that it is important that parents are aware of their children’s activities on social media.
This comes in light of a Kenwyn girl who was reportedly stopped at Cape Town International Airport before boarding a flight bound for OR Tambo that would take her to ISIS recruiters.
“We as parents need to educate ourselves on social media. We as parents cannot just go and say ‘social media is doing this’, we need to know what our children are doing online.”
Moerat said there are many factors that add to a young Muslim’s desire to join a group like ISIS. He says those factors are then exploited and used to recruit prospective conscripts. Moerat believes more needs to be done to research their methods and modus operandi.
“Every young mind has a different form of enticement, different things that appeal to them and ways of bringing them into the fold [of ISIS]. We need to look very carefully into ISIS’s methodology to see what is it that people find appealing to them, despite the gruesome images and actions that are readily available to be seen.” VOC (Andriques Che Petersen)
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2 comments
sh moerat is one of the few who has reasonably consistently in the past shied away from many of his colleagues' sectarianism,
the mjc et al has always been in the forefront of internal confrontation using notably folk like ml taha keraan sh erafaan abrahams and dr imtiaz sooleman and his sister and "mufti" ak hoosen et al
we all and they too knew the background of the salafi saudi wahabi taliban al qaeda boko haram fsa al nusra isil et al yet they supported the gunrunning in iraq ande syria, the atrocities by these brutes against christians yazidis shia and other minority hardly extracted any condemnation from them,
even when it was clear that these brutes were targetting even sunnis who disagreed with them, they stalled……
alhamdulillah theyve come out strongly now but maybe its because of new leadership in the form of mmmm for eg sh talip?
years ago sh gabriels then ml hendricks were equally conciliatory but they too quickly floundered, probably reined in by they colleagues…..
duas that sh talip will weather the storm from within the mjc
hes got an even greater trial within the uucsa…..
I find it quite shocking that imaams don’t have the ability to speak out openly against the tyranny and oppression of ISIL and all their terrorist friends.
If this is their approach within our own Muslim ornasiations, how then can they be elected to government to lead a democratic nation forward?