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Zaid: Muslims should take responsibility for IS carnage
Published:  Jul 11, 2016 5:24 PM
Updated: 10:01 AM

Muslims should do more than denounce attacks by militant group IS as deviant and un-Islamic, said former de facto law minister Zaid Ibrahim.

Instead, he said, they should look at why young Muslims are radicalised and what they were doing to encourage that.

For example, Zaid said, Muslim leaders like the prime minister and state religious agencies should stop raving against "enemies of Islam".

"If our leaders want to save this country, and they have not forgotten their responsibilities, they must not pour oil into the Muslim rage, running wild against the world.

"They must tell these young warriors to cool down, that the world is busy doing their own thing, and not necessarily attacking Islam, just because Islam forbids or disapproves some of those things they like doing, like playing Pokemon," he said in a blog post today.

Zaid said that by making blanket statements about "enemies of Islam", Muslim leaders were feeding the imaginations of those on the path of radicalisation.

"None of them (Muslim leaders) dares to name the enemies. If we ask them to name who are the enemies of Islam, they just shut up, although I guess, they are dying to name the following: Jews, The Wall Street Journal, Hindus, Christians, Donald Trump, Coca Cola, music, movies, Pokemon games, card games, gambling and hundreds of other worldly stuff.

"In other words they are at war with almost everything and everyone else not looking like them," he said.

"How do we stop this madness from spreading? We must have clever leaders. Smart leaders will not spread panic, and say that Islam is under attack. No wonder these suicide bombers are responding accordingly to save Islam."

Hundreds have died and many more injured in a string of terrorist attacks in Istanbul, Baghdad, Dhaka, Jeddah and Madinah, and Kuala Lumpur in the past two weeks.

An IS-linked individual claimed responsibility for the grenade attack on a pub in Puchong last month.

Eight were injured in the incident - the first ever IS attack in Malaysia - which led to the arrest of 15 people under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma), police said.

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