A Muslim response to the Archbishop of Canterbury's recent comments

Canterbury … How nice of you
By Ali Ahmad Al-BaghliFormer Oil Minister
THE Archbishop of Canterbury and head of Church of England, Rowan Williams, is as revered by members of his church as is the Vatican Pope by followers of the Catholic church. This brave bishop says, “no one can escape some of the Islamic teachings and people should be more open-minded towards Islam because a productive compromise can be reached if other religions deal with Islam with an open mind.” The bishop said this on BBC when he was talking about Islam and its links with the British law. His statement on Islamic teachings created a big uproar and the English newspapers and government are still talking about it. This is a normal reaction in an open-minded, democratic and free society like the British society. What we care about here is the peace campaign which the bishop undertook by asking for inclusion of a number of Islamic teachings in the British law, especially since the number of Muslims in the British society is increasing steadily.
Our religious leaders and their so-called followers, whose number is also increasing with each passing day, lack the kind of peaceful approach adopted by the bishop. Some religious men are praying to God day and night against people of other religions. They also prevent us from wishing them on their festivals. Our religious men are also against granting citizenship to people of other religions and some of them have even prevented us from doing good things like exchanging red roses or chocolates on Valentine’s Day. We hope these religious men go back to living in tents and riding camels in deserts instead of bothering about people of other religions. Yes, we need tens of such bishops to live among us. We need men like Abdullrahman Al-Kawakibi, Mohammad Abduh, Jamal Al-Deen Al-Afghani and Mahmoud Al-Aqqad to light the world for us.
albaghlilaw@hotmail.com