Is Sheikh Mohammed Omran really as extremist as is suggested or is he just a scapegoat for the media and the Government?
He is often quoted as saying that Osama bin Laden is a great man. Yet listen to the full context of what he is saying. This is the advice he gives to those involved in the WTC attacks:
“"This is not the right way to handle your unjust matter if you feel you are dealt with unjust", but to bring it out to the community and solve it in a proper manner.”
This is how he described the attacks:
“This has happened in evil hands for an evil action...”
Weeks later he clarified his comments that bin Laden is a great man:
“I said Osama bin Laden is a good man in a sense that I freed him of all these horrible actions.”
It is at this point that I realised the misunderstanding that had been occurring. Firstly, the Sheikh’s English is not exactly perfect. He often seems to have difficulty trying to find the right words to express himself. That is the first thing to take into account. The second is that he is a religious man. A holy man. Therefore he is judging the actions as evil, but no man is inherently evil in the eyes of a holy man (priest, imam or otherwise). The imam makes this fairly clear through his muddled English:
“take it as I am talking of Osama bin Laden, the man who did September 11, the man behind so many atrocities or bad actions or horrible actions, of course I won't accept or I won't support 1% a man did something like that. So the argument here should be, did we accept or we support this atrocity or not? We accept the terrorist act or not? It doesn't matter who did it. We don't accept it. If Osama bin Laden did it, of course, we are the first one to condemn the action and the person or the persons behind that action.”
He also clarifies that he doesn’t go in for the West’s obsession with presenting such black and white ideas of good and evil. He can see tha bin Laden has done evil and has done good:
“When I said "a good man" I meant he did good deeds with the poor people. I admire his leaving all of his luxury life and his riches and go back to Afghanistan mountains and work with the Afghanis and help them, and this is what I'm looking at. I'm not saying a good man, good and bad in your sense. In my sense, a man did a great job with the Afghanis somehow and helped them with his wealth and support the poor, and this is what I'm praising of him. Not praising of him the actions you see and you believe he did it and I take refuge of God to say something like that.”
The Sheikh was also accused of supporting the people fighting against the Coalition of the Willing in Iraq. But they assumed that the Sheikh believes that they are fighting a jihad, which the Sheikh makes clear:
“If there's a Jihad in Iraq I don't believe what's happening in Iraq today, with all of this interruption and misconduct with everyone against everyone is a jihad, I don't say that, no.
TONY JONES: So it would be wrong for any young Australian to go to Iraq to fight jihad, is that right?
SHEIKH OMRAN: That's less or more about what I'm saying, yes.”
And as to the 72 virgin myth:
“What do you say to the delusion that many of these young suicide bombers have that they will go straight to heaven and be attended by 72 virgins?
SHEIKH OMRAN: I'm saying they got it wrong,”
How is this extreme? Once again, the media likes to beat it up and find extremists. They ignore the moderates and they take them out of context to turn them into extremists. Shame on them.