MAGHAREBIA: Moroccan activist Ahmed Assid has unleashed a torrent of criticism, including a takfir fatwa from a leading salafist preacher, for making controversial comments about Islam.
During a three-day seminar at the 10th national congress of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH) in Rabat, which ended on April 21st, Assid suggested that religious school textbooks lured youths to violence.
To call [upon people] to follow Islam by the use of violence and constraint is an act of terrorism," he said.
Assid should be sued for insulting the prophet and ridiculing Islam, salafist preacher Sheikh Mohammed Fizazi said during a lecture at Ibn Tofail University in Kenitra.
Yet the strongest reaction came from Sheikh Hassan Kettani, who accused Assid of kufr. In describing him as a "criminal" and "enemy of God", Kettani issued a call for "silencing his voice".
In a statement posted on Facebook, Kettani said that Assid had "crossed all lines in provoking Moroccans in particular and the ummah of Islam in general by deliberately insulting and desecrating each and every one of their sanctities".
"In his impudence, he [Assid] went as far as to claim that the Quran contains no eloquence, ridiculing and underestimating the language of Quran," Kettani's statement went on.
Assid later defended his comments. » | Mohamed Saadouni in Casablanca for Magharebia | Tuesday, May 07, 2013
HT: Robert Spencer @ Jihad Watch »
