Saturday 24 Jan 2015 - 01:26 Makkah mean time-4-4-1436
Tokyo (IINA) – Muslim community in Japan said the ISIS militant group does not represent them and may further instigate misconceptions about the religion in the country, International Business Times reported.
Japanese Muslim leaders have called the group's capture of two Japanese hostages an “unforgivable act of cruelty,” according to local media sources.
“The Muslims have long been misunderstood in Japan, an incident like this could further breed to misunderstand Islam” said Shigeru Shimoyama, a spokesperson for Tokyo Camii, the nation’s largest mosque, according to Japan Times. He denounced the video as “despicable” and “un-Islamic.”
Shimoyama said the killing of one innocent person is tantamount to killing all of mankind and that the ISIS terrorists, whose acts contradict Islam’s respect for human life, “are not Muslims.” Tokyo Camii has also put out a similar statement on its website, calling for understanding and prayers for the two hostages.
ISIS Terrorist group released a video on Tuesday showing two Japanese hostages in orange jumpsuits as their captor threatened to behead them with a knife if a ransom of $200 million was not paid up within 72 hours.
The estimated Muslim population in Japan is around 100,000, according to studies done by scholars. Roughly, 90 percent of the Muslims in the country are estimated to be resident foreigners and 10 percent are native Japanese. The first recorded Japanese to convert to Islam was in 1909, but the Muslim population in Japan did not take off until in the 1980s. Many of the early Muslims in the country were from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Iran, who came to Japan to work, and the Tokyo Camii, built as early as 1938 and destroyed in 1986, was rebuilt in 2000.
SM/IINA
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