Australia's top Muslim cleric defied mounting pressure to step down for comments comparing women without head scarves to "uncovered meat," and suggested Friday that President Bush was more deserving of criticism for the bloodshed in Iraq.Government leaders warned that by remaining mufti of Australia, Sheik Taj Aldin al-Hilali was dividing Australia's Islamic community, many of whom reject his suggestion that women who dress immodestly
| "He's driven a wedge within the community and the Muslim community itself is demanding that he be sacked." |
But Toufic Zreika, an administrator of Australia's largest mosque in Sydney where the Egyptian-born cleric gave his sermon last month, said dismissing al-Hilali could also divide Muslims. "The problem is we risk dividing the community further and that's my main aim, to keep this community together," Zreika, president of the Lakemba Mosque Association, told Ten Network television news.
In a concession to broad outrage from Muslim and non-Muslims alike over his comments, al-Hilali agreed to abstain from preaching for three months while he makes a pilgrimage to Mecca, said his friend Keysar Trad, president of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia. "He's going to have time to reflect about he's said, for which he has apologized,
| "The grass roots (Muslims) are certainly not going to overlook all the hard work he's done for the community in the past and condemn him for these comments." |
The furor erupted Thursday when The Australian national newspaper reported translated excerpts of al-Hilali's lecture, which his supporters suspect had been secretly tape-recorded by a rival Islamic group. Scores of worshippers attended Friday prayers at his mosque, but, in accordance with the ban, the 65-year-old al-Hilali did not deliver a sermon. Asked if he would resign, al-Hilali, surrounded by a police guard outside the mosque, told reporters, "After we clean the world of the White House first." He did not elaborate. The statement brought cheers and applause from the supporters who surrounded him.
Trad later explained on al-Hilali's behalf that the cleric was making a point that Bush's foreign policy and invasion of Iraq were more deserving of criticism than a sermon. The cleric was a vocal opponent of the Iraq war and has previously described Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australian Prime Minister John Howard - the three leaders who declared war on Saddam Hussein's regime - as an axis of evil.
But some Muslim leaders have called for the resignation of the cleric who was to become a unifying figure when he was appointed national mufti in 1989 by the top Islamic body, Australian Federation of Islamic Councils. Islamic Council of Victoria state executive Sherene Hassan told Ten news that
| "99.99 percent of Muslims do not support what he's saying and he certainly does not represent the majority of Muslims." |
Howard said Australia's Muslims would be perceived as supporting al-Hilali's views if he remained a religious leader. "What I am saying to the Islamic community is this: If they do not resolve this matter, it could do lasting damage to the perceptions of that community within the broader Australian community," Howard told Southern Cross Broadcasting.
The controversy comes amid tense relations between Australia's estimated 300,000 Muslims and the rest of the 20 million population who predominantly come from a Christian background. In December 2005, Sydney was gripped by riots that often pitted gangs of white youths against youths of Middle Eastern descent. Howard recently offended parts of the Muslim community by singling out some Muslims as extremists and saying they should adopt liberal attitudes to women's rights.