Utah Muslim leaders condemn extremism as Iraqi fears mount
Religion » Islam requires moderation, compassion and tolerance, they say.

By Peggy Fletcher Stack | The Salt Lake Tribune

First Published Aug 14 2014 06:55 pm • Last Updated Aug 14 2014 09:37 pm

Islam is a compassionate and tolerant religion, Utah Muslim leaders say, so any group that terrorizes minorities, beheads children or kidnaps women while claiming to be Muslim would be violating tenets of the faith.

But that is what various news agencies have said Islamic State militants are doing in northern Iraq — attacking Christians and Yazidis (a Kurdish-speaking minority whose faith is linked to ancient Zoroastrianism), while driving thousands from their homes.

The Islamic State has been accused of attempting genocide against the area's religious minorities and committing untold atrocities in its attempt to take over the region.

"If they are persecuting minorities, religious or ethnic, then it is a bogus group and we have no sympathy for it," says Imam Shuaib Din, leader of Utah Islamic Center in Sandy. "If they are killing or allowing the suffering of people who don't agree with them, that goes against the common core of Islam."

The religion would not condone killing anyone, he says, especially for nonbelief.

Din stopped short of outright condemnation of the extremist group by name. He says he doesn't have enough "credible information" about the Islamic State to either critique or condemn it.

Imam Muhammed Mehtar, of the Khadeeja Islamic Center in West Valley City, was also circumspect in assessing the Islamic State's reported actions in Iraq.

Islam is "a moderate religion and a moderate group of people. Moderation is in everything we do," Mehtar says. "To do things that are extreme — whether in manner of hate or love — that is not in Islam."

Moderation, the imam reiterates, "represents our true values, our Muslimness."

Reports from the region around Kurdistan say that Islamic State militants have demanded that Christians and Yazidis either convert to Islam, pay a tax, leave or be killed.