After chanting "Allahu akbar", those gathered for Friday prayers at Brussels' Grand Mosque streamed outside to chant "Long Live Belgium," feeling the pressure to tackle radicalisation after the attacks on the city.
Muslims offer prayers at the Grand Mosque in Brussels on Mar 25, 2016. (Photo: AFP/Philippe Huguen)
Imam Ndiaye Mouhameth Galaye speaks ahead of Friday prayers at the
Grand Mosque in Brussels on Mar 25, 2016. (Photo: AFP/Philippe Huguen)
A Muslim man reads from the Koran at the Grand Mosque in Brussels on Mar 25, 2016. (Photo: AFP/Philippe Huguen)
A picture taken on Mar 25, 2016 shows a banner reading "not on behalf
of Islam" as people gather to pay tribute to the victims of the Brussels
terror attacks, on Place de la Bourse. (Photo: AFP/Laurie Dieffembacq)
Belgian and EU flags are displayed above the entrance to the Grand
Mosque in Brussels on Mar 25, 2016. (Photo: AFP/Philippe Huguen)
BRUSSELS: After chanting "Allahu akbar", those gathered for
Friday prayers at Brussels' Grand Mosque streamed outside to chant "Long
Live Belgium," feeling the pressure to tackle radicalisation after the
attacks on the city.
"The time has come to act," Imam Ndiaye Mouhameth Galaye told AFP
ahead of his sermon. "Today we're launching a programme against
radicalisation."As the faithful arrived, the Belgian and European Union flags fluttered at the entrance to the city's main mosque, close by EU headquarters and several embassies.
"These criminals committed barbaric crimes," the imam said.
"We are going to tell them that what they did has nothing to do with
Islam." "Friday's sermon," he told hundreds gathered in the prayer room,
"will focus on current events."
Condemning the attacks in which 31 people died and 300 were
injured, the Senegalese-born imam said Muslims were "sad and sorrowful"
and urged the crowd "to give their blood" to those wounded.
Once the prayer session was over, the faithful gathered
outside the building in one of the city's parks, the Cinquantenaire
gardens that surround the mosque, chanting "Long Live Belgium."
Followed by a few dozen men and women bearing bouquets, Galaye headed
to the Maalbeek metro station about a kilometre (900 yards) away to pay
tribute to the dead at the site where one of three bombers blew himself
up on a train.
The mosque, which also hosts the Belgian Islamic and Cultural Centre (CICB), opened in 1978 thanks to Saudi Arabia.
"We're not financed by Saudi Arabia, we're financed by the
World Islamic League," the imam said. "Of the 400 or 500 youngsters
who've left for Syria (from Belgium), not a single one studied with us.
It all happens on social media, on Internet and most of them are former
delinquents, criminals."
'DEALERS AND GUNMEN'The shock of the attacks has prompted the mosque to work with young people to fight radicalisation.
"We've repeatedly condemned what happened in Paris and
elsewhere. The time has come for action. Belgium's been hit," the imam
said. The CICB aims to launch a programme targeting youth that would
involve theologians practising a moderate Islam, he added.
Though the details have yet to be finalised, Galaye said the
project is almost up and running. He said he had often provided
counselling for families worried about their children becoming
radicalised.
"We try to contact them and have already stopped several
young people from leaving for Syria. Some are currently studying here
now," he said.
Outside the mosque, one young man said, "Muslims aren't
terrorists", while another added, "We're very sad about all this, it has
to stop."
"(The terrorists) are all drug dealers and gunmen," said
25-year-old Sohaib Ben Ayad. "We don't have to justify ourselves as
Muslims, we too know people who were hurt at the airport or on the
metro."
Loubna Lafquiri, a young Belgian-Moroccan mother of three, was killed in the blast on a metro train at Maalbeek station.
- AFP/ec
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