Islamic community disavows terrorism, extremist organisations

Islamic community disavows terrorism, extremist organisations

Muslims increasingly perceive ISIL and Boko Haram as criminal rather than religious organisations.

Many Muslims are increasingly critical of the Islamic state -- formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) -- Boko Haram and other Islamic extremist groups, experts said.

Such organisations are perceived by Muslims in the Balkans as criminal, using religion to cover their brutal actions, said Dashamir Berxulli, a professor at the Pristina University in Kosovo.

"The most natural action of the Albanian Muslims in practice is to distance immediately from this approach, and, moreover, to identify with pure Islam and with European values," Berxulli told SETimes.

Many throughout the Islamic community reacted after extremists issued a fatwa last week, ordering females in the area around Mosul, Iraq, to undergo genital mutilation and expelled Christians while confiscating their properties.

"They are killing people. It is a sin," Drita Dauti, a self-employed woman in Tirana, Albania, told SETimes.

Officials said such practices are violating fundamental human rights and are of grave concern.

"This is not the will of Iraqi people, or the women of Iraq in these vulnerable areas covered by terrorists," Jacqueline Badcock, UN resident and humanitarian co-ordinator in Iraq, told Reuters.

Thousands of Muslims are murdered every day by other Islamic extremists, said Mehmet Gormez, head of Turkey religious affairs directorate (Diyanet) at the World Islamic Scholars, Peace, Moderation and Common Sense Initiative conference in Istanbul on July 19th.

"They are being killed by their brothers, not only in Syria and Iraq, but...