ResponsesLeading Muslim scholars in the UK yesterday denied there was any justification in Islam for suicide bombings as Muslim academics and senior police officers emphasised the need for the community to combine to tackle terror.
Speaking ahead of a meeting of Islamist scholars convened by the Muslim Council of Britain at London's Regent's Park mosque, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the council's secretary-general, said: "Those behind this atrocity are not just enemies of humanity, but enemies of Islam and Muslims.
"The people at the receiving end of this, both as some of the victims of the bombing and the victims of the backlash, are Muslims."
Sir Iqbal told a meeting of Islamic and community leaders in Leeds: "We are all responsible for it in a way because we have been talking about the fact there are elements within the community who are perhaps carrying out the rhetoric and message of hate, and very little has been done.
"The community across the country condemns such activities, but beyond that what have we been doing?"
Sir Ian Blair, Metropolitan Police commissioner, said that the involvement of British-born Muslims "changes the paradigm of terror". He echoed the views of some academics that the community had been "partially in denial" about the potential for terrorism in its midst.
But while the involvement of British-born Muslims "makes it both more difficult for many communities . . . it also gives us a huge opportunity," Sir Ian said. It was the moment when all communities, but particularly the Muslim community, could "move into active engagement in counterterrorism".
Tariq Modood, professor of sociology at Bristol University and a leading expert on ethnic minority politics and status, said British society had to ensure that Muslims as a whole were not blamed or victimised.
"If that happens we have an isolated community and a divided country in which people like these bombers can be replaced, and they will engage more community support."
But there was a "reciprocal obligation" on the Muslim community "to help find the people who might be planning some other outrage".
There would always be divided loyalties as there were for other groups such as Jews, or as there were for people of Irish descent who believed in a united Ireland but opposed the IRA's bombing campaigns.
"People can be both British and Muslim," he said, and many Muslims would continue to oppose what was happening in Iraq, Palestine and elsewhere. "But they have to be positive in the fight against terrorism. They can't be neutral."
What made the bombings more alarming, he said, was that compared with much of Western Europe British Muslims were relatively well integrated. They were less segregated and isolated than in France, Germany or the Netherlands.
The bombers and their associates came from reasonably comfortable backgrounds, he said. "You cannot explain this in terms of deprivation or other socioeconomic factors. They were lower middle class with fairly good futures in front of them. Like the 9/11 hijackers, this is rooted in ideology."
Tahir Abbas, of Birmingham University's centre for the study of ethnicity and culture, said British Pakistanis had been in denial in a sense. Community leaders and imams had to take greater responsibility for Islamic teaching and what went on in the mosques.
That included tackling the preachers who said suicide bombers went to heaven, and might require a law against religious hatred. About a third of British Muslims are under 15, "and that is a huge swathe of the population that is vulnerable".
Sir Ian said: "The crucial issue now is: can we engage with the community in Britain so that they move from being fairly close to denial about this into a situation in which they really engage with us?
"What we need them to do is tell us who the preachers of hate really are, who are the recruiters of the vulnerable?"