Muslim scholars challenge ‘Islamic State’ in open letter
More than 120 Muslim scholars from around the world endorsed an open letter to the “fighters and followers” of the so-called Islamic State, denouncing them as un-Islamic in the most Islamic of terms.
Relying heavily on the Qur’an, the 18-page letter released in late September picks apart the extremist ideology of the militants, whose bid to establish a transnational Islamic state in Iraq and Syria has left a wake of brutal death and destruction.
Even translated into English, the letter will still sound strange to most Americans, said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who released it in Washington with ten other American Muslim religious and civil rights leaders.
