Today's Paper INTERNATIONAL

Islamic State jihad? Not in the name of Islam

Kimiko De Freytas Tamura

British Muslims standing up against Islamic StatePHOTO: Twitter

With concerns growing in the West about the recruitment of young people by extremist Islamic groups, PresidentBarack Obama brought new attention last week to Muslims who have condemned the radical movement when hesingled out a British group for praise in his speech at the United Nations.

Popular campaign

The group, the Active Change Foundation, a community organisation in East London, began a campaign this monthbuilt around the Twitter hashtag #notinmyname, which has denounced the beheading of the British aid worker DavidHaines and other brutal acts committed by the radical group the Islamic State (IS).

The hashtag has been tweeted tens of thousands of times, and a YouTube video promoting the campaign has more than200,000 views.

But the campaign has spawned a satirical reaction from Muslims who say it presumes that they are somehowcollectively responsible for Islamic extremism.

Using the hashtag #Muslimapologies, they have tweeted mock apologies for advances by Muslims in the fields ofmathematics and medicine, as well as for creations like coffee, shampoo, cameras and chess.

While the tweets are sarcastic and playful, they underline frustration among some Muslims with Westernmisperceptions of Islam. The hashtag #Muslimapologies at one point topped the trending list on Twitter in Britain.

Sorry for Algebra #Muslimapologies, tweeted @AnaziNasser, beneath a picture of the Persian mathematicianMuhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, whose ninth-century treatise, Al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah, laid the foundation ofalgebra.

Another, @wanderd0gs, tweeted: Im sorry for inventing surgery, coffee, universities, algebra, hospitals, toothbrushes,vaccinations, numbers, & the sort.

The Not In My Name campaign was not intended as an apology for Islam, its supporters say, but rather to expressoutrage over murders and other violence committed by groups like the IS.

Western countries have grappled with trying to prevent young people from joining radical Muslim forces, fearing in

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part that the recruits might bring their training and commitment to violent jihad back home.

In his speech at the United Nations on Wednesday, Mr. Obama said more effort had to be made to expose, confrontand refute the ideology of radical groups.

The Not In My Name campaign is among a number of efforts by British Muslims to speak out against the Islamic State,which analysts estimate has attracted about 500 British fighters.

Recently, in an open letter, more than 100 imams called the militant group un-Islamic and pleaded for the release ofAlan Henning, a British hostage whom militants have threatened to behead. They said that Mr. Henning, a cabdriverwho had volunteered to deliver humanitarian aid in Syria, had tried to help Muslims and deserved to live.

In the past week, thousands of Muslims in sympathy with the Not In My Name campaign, from mosques in places likeFrance, Germany and Norway, held demonstrations to condemn the Islamic States ideology and actions.

The hashtag #notinmyname is not new. It was a prominent anti-Iraq War slogan in 2003, and many Israelis used#notinmyname in the summer to condemn the war in Gaza.

Spreading the word

Hanif Qadir, founder of the Active Change Foundation and a former jihadist, said he wanted to spread the word thatthe Islamic State does not represent Islam.

Young British Muslims are sick and tired of the hate-filled propaganda the terrorists ISIS and their supporters churnout on social media, Mr. Qadir wrote in an e-mail.

They are angry that the criminals are using the platforms to radicalize young people and spread their poisonous wordsof violence in the name of Islam. Islamic State militants, he said, do not practise the true teachings of Islam: peace,mercy and compassion. They are the enemy of all mankind.

The Islamic State has proved adept at using social media to spread its message. The group has started new Twitter andYouTube accounts as soon as old ones are suspended, and it has used parts of the hit video game Grand Theft Auto toradicalise and recruit young Muslims.

New York Times News Service

IS militants do not practise the true teachings of Islam: peace, mercy and compassion.

Islamic State militants, he said, do not practice the true teachings of Islam: peace, mercy andcompassion.

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