ROME - The main mosque in Rome suspended its imam after he delivered a sermon praising Palestinian fighters and calling for the destruction of Islam's enemies. The decision by the mosque's administrators to remove Abdel-Samie Mahmoud Ibrahim Moussa capped a week of debate about the sermon, delivered during Friday prayers June 6 and published, in part, by the Rome daily La Repubblica a day later. "Allah, let the Islamic fighters in Palestine, Chechnya and elsewhere be triumphant!" La Repubblica quoted Moussa as saying in Arabic. "Allah, destroy the houses of the enemies of Islam! Allah, help us crush the enemies of Islam! Allah ensure the victory of the nation of Islam!" the imam said in quotes that were confirmed Saturday by Mario Scialoja, head of the World Muslim League in Italy, which is affiliated with the mosque.
| I guess that stuff goes over well in Mecca, but not in Rome... |
Italy's interior minister, Giuseppe Pisanu, expressed outrage at the imam's call, saying Italy's mosques "must be completely free of preachers of violence, recruiters for holy war and agents of foreign interests in Italy." On Friday, the administrative council of the Islamic Cultural Center, made up of the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other Muslim countries, decided to suspend him, Scialoja said Saturday. "We cannot allow the mosque to be used to espouse violence the way the young imam did," he said Saturday.
| Why not? They do it everywhere else. |
He said the majority of Rome's 90,000 Muslims are "quite peaceful and serene" and didn't share Moussa's message and that the Muslim community's relations with the Italian government are good. It wasn't clear what would become of the 32-year-old Moussa, who is Egyptian and was named to head Rome's main mosque five months ago by Cairo's Al-Azhar university, Sunni Islam's highest authority. Scialoga said it would take some time for a permanent replacement to be named.
| Maybe they should ship his ass back to Egypt, and the rest of him with it. |
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