5th July 2004
The Sunday Telegraph

Dear Sir,

In chastising Dr Rowan Williams for his perceived conciliatory overtures to the Islamic world, Will Cummins (The Sunday Telegraph, 4 July 2004) simply regurgitates much of the Clash of Civilisations discourse so beloved of Zionists everywhere (Christian as well as Jewish).

Mr Cummins repeats the popular yet no less mythical claim that Islam�s expansion was the result of violent conquest (�Mohammed enjoined his followers to spread Islam by the sword�) without any reference to the Qur�anic command that �There should be no compulsion in religion. Verily, Truth stands apart from error� (al-Qur�an 2: 286). The largest Muslim nation in the world today is Indonesia � home to almost 200 million Muslims. Which Muslim army conquered Indonesia, Mr Cummins, please tell us? A more thorough reading of Islam�s spread through mercantilism and plain good practice would perhaps rectify this particular historical misrepresentation.

Cummins goes on to incite hatred of Muslims through claims of territorial conquest and re-conquest, claiming, �Christians are the original inhabitants and rightful owners of almost every Muslim land�. He describes other faith groups (Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Zoroastrian and Hindu) as besieged and embattled fighting an Islamic enemy hell-bent on a �naked imperialism�. This latter claim may be considered by some to be rather ironic coming from an Englishman, yet it is no less false for its repetition.

His reference to 20 million Muslims having �inundated Europe� is positively Powellite in tone and appears to us to be clearly designed to stir ill feeling � and maybe something more, eh, Mr Cummins? - against European Muslims.

If there is anyone that has shown �a complete misunderstanding of Islam�, it is Mr Cummins. This wilful misreading of Islam comes at a time when all communities, Muslim and non-Muslim, need to be engaged in collaborative projects to protect our present and our future from hatemongers � who as Cummins� piece unwittingly showed exist among all communities - that would try and pit peoples against one another on the basis of a presumed superiority. Let us hope that sane voices like those of Dr Williams drown out all the Will Cummins� in our midst.

Yours faithfully,

Mr Inayat Bunglawala,
Secretary,
Media Committee,
The Muslim Council of Britain
Boardman House,
64 Broadway,
Stratford,
London E15 1NT