Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti, the top religious authority in the birthplace of Islam, has condemned the Boko Haram sect as a group “set up to smear the image of Islam” and condemned the kidnapping of the Chibok schoolgirls.
Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh said the radical movement, which says it wants to establish a “pure” Islamic state in Nigeria, was “misguided” and should be “shown their wrong path and be made to reject it.”
Religious leaders in the Muslim world, who often do not comment on militant violence, came together to denounce the leader of the sect known as Abubakar shekau, for saying in his latest video released on Monday that Allah told him to sell the kidnapped girls as forced brides.
Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh said: “This is a group that has been set up to smear the image of Islam and must be offered advice, shown their wrong path and be made to reject it,” he told the Arabic-language newspaper al-Hayat in an interview published on Friday.
“These groups are not on the right path because Islam is against kidnapping, killing and aggression,” he said. “Marrying kidnapped girls is not permitted.”
The release of Shekau’s video sparked a wave of revulsion in Nigeria and abroad and prompting offers of help from countries such as the United States, Britain, China and France to join to sesrch for the abducted students of Government Secondary School, Chibok.
The terrorists attacks has become by far the biggest security threat to Nigeria and it has spread out to menace the neighboring countries of Cameroon, Niger and Chad.
On Thursday, Islamic scholars and human rights officials of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the world’s largest Muslim body representing 57 countries, denounced the kidnapping as “a gross misinterpretation of Islam”.
This week, Al-Azhar, the prestigious Cairo-based seat of Sunni learning, also said that the kidnapping “has nothing to do with the tolerant and noble teachings of Islam.”
