Russian region to launch anti-IS campaign among Muslims, civil servants

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Monday 30 Nov 2015 - 14:02 Makkah mean time-18-2-1437 RT photo Moscow (IINA) – Authorities in Russia’s Sverdlovsk region, in the Urals Federal District, will launch a massive campaign among officials and Muslim clergy, highlighting the differences between extremist movements such as Islamic State (IS) and real Islam with its centuries-long traditions, Russia Today (RT) reported. During the campaign, a 70-page book will be distributed. The book was written by the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of the region in collaboration with the Theology Department of the Urals State Mining University. The book will be distributed among imams of mosques and civil servants, whose work requires cooperation with believers, and also among professors and students in higher education institutions. The decision to release the book was made after an 18-year-old female Russian student left home to join IS terrorists in Syria,one of the professors who took part in this initiative told Izvestia daily. The book contains a brief history of the religion of Islam with an emphasis on stories and extracts from the Holy Qur'an that prove the inadmissibility of sowing war and strife in foreign lands. It also quotes the decisions of several Russian Muslim bodies, such as the Spiritual Directorate of Russia’s Muslims, denouncing IS as a terrorist group and calling for Russian Muslims to actively oppose its policies. Authors of the book noted that recent research revealed that the spread of extremism among young people is largely due to a distorted understanding of religion and lack of contact with renowned scholars. In March, two major Russian Muslim unions issued fatwas against IS, branding all of its members enemies of Islam and calling for their punishment as criminals. The imams also ruled that the term “Islamic State” should be used in quotation marks, or omitted entirely to avoid insult to true Muslims who had no relation to terrorists and extremists. AB/IINA