Quotes from Islamic leaders

"Islam, the religion of tolerance, holds the human soul in high esteem and considers the attack against innocent human beings a grave sin....I categorically go against a committed Muslim's embarking on such attacks. Islam never allows a Muslim to kill the innocent and the helpless."
Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Muslim scholar, Doha, Qatar (IslamOnline & News Agencies, September 13, 2001)

"Attacking innocent people is not courageous; it is stupid and will be punished on the day of judgment. It's not courageous to attack innocent children, women, and civilians. It is courageous to protect freedom; it is courageous to defend oneself and not to attack."
Sheikh Mohammed Sayyed al-Tantawi of Al-Azhar mosque and university, Cairo, Egypt (Agence France-Presse, September 14, 2001)

"Just as he must not be allowed to get away with the terrorist hijackings and cold-blooded murder of September 11, Osama bin Laden must not be allowed to get away with hijacking Islam and the good name of religion generally."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Canadian Muslim Civil Liberties Association, October 17, 2001

"Such attacks on such a grand scale -- it's very outrageous, it's worth every condemnation. Whoever carried out the attack did not have a right to do it in the name of the religion, namely Islam....Killing innocents to achieve a target has never been the heart of the religion."
Yusuf Muhammad, Muslim cleric, Jakarta, Indonesia (Reuters, September 14, 2001)

"It would be a grave calamity when the followers of this phenomenon [terrorism] use religion as a camouflage, because true Islam stands innocent from all that. Its teachings stand aloft from people who believe in violence as a course of action and sabotage as a method and bloodshed as a way of reform."
Sheikh Abdul-Rahman al-Sudais at the Grand Mosque, Mecca, Saudi Arabia (Reuters, September 28, 2001)

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