First, and I've already stated this on my other site, I'd like to send out my warmest prayers to the two beloved souls who passed. I pray for their loved ones and for them in the after-life. Having spent time in so many churches i.e. celebrations, invitations from friends, and just plain wanting to sit down and pray. I remember after leaving my second job and gaining an excellent post, I went to a church, one which I passed daily on my way to work, and prayed quietly and thanked the Lord for delivering me out of a very tough point in my life. Churches are beautiful and to us Muslims, are the houses of God and sacred.
For the two worshipers to lose their lives in a church is just the most horrible of things to hear of. This demon who committed the act is such, as in a being, not human, but one of the darkest evil. Had I been there I would not have spared him, I wish I was there to protect the poor grandmother who fell to this demon's blade.
Now for France. Having watched the situation unfold in France for the last 35 years I have been alarmed at the rise of extreme salafism. Having been to France and interacted with French folk over my life, I just couldn't believe the default belief of many French Muslims was the Salafi school of thought, something which at its core is extreme. There was a complete absence of Sufism, unlike my own country the UK, which the majority of Muslims adhere to, this has a lot to do with the Indian subcontinent, more about this later. If you look at every terror group past and present ,which have their roots based in Islamist backgrounds they have come from Salafi backgrounds. Al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiyah , the GIA, Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab, Abu Sayyaf you name it. When was the last time you heard about a Sufi suicide bomber? Or one who went on a mass rampage in a Western country beheading people, there isn't.
With such a high adherence to Salafism, the chances of terror attacks occurring on French soil have increased exponentially. Now this is also linked to the rise in popularity of this school of thought in North Africa, where sadly traditional Sufi Islam has been replaced at a rapid rate by Salafism. In Algeria, Libya they have total control, Tunisia has a rising threat, only Morocco remains somewhat aloof, but for how long , no one knows. Again if you look at Moroccan populations in mainland Europe Salafism, is immensely popular.
The UK experience differs where the bulk of the population comes from the sub-continent where Sufism holds sway. If you carefully analyse the timelines of terror attacks in the UK, they literally all began from 2000 onwards, which coincided with the peak of preaching by the likes of Abu Qatada, Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri, three preachers from Salafist backgrounds, who gained asylum and who managed to poison youth from sub-continent communities. This is in part our fault as we thought the same messages of being good British citizens, concentrate on your prayers, fasting etc was enough. We failed to address the challenges our second and third generations faced and paid dearly for it. At the time even speeches in our mosques were still being done in Urdu, Bengali etc!
It has taken us years to rid ourselves from this poison, I myself have been actively involved in such efforts and we have managed to turn the tide, but you still get arrests. However if you look at the attacks carried out in recent years, the 'men' were from North African backgrounds who had gained asylum here, or their families had e.g. the Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi (killed 22), the Reading stabbing attacker Khairi Saadallah( killed 3), both were Libyan or converts, again prone to extreme preaching.
Such folk do not have active anti radicalisation programs going on from within their communities which is worrying. I can recall during the annual Prophet Muhammad birthday celebration, we went past an Algerian cafe, upon which we were met by hostility and asked what we were doing i.e. this is not islam. All of them were salafis , and of course had recently come from France through the EU's freedom of movement principle. Our side (Pakistani Sufis) got quite heated at the sheer arrogance from these new comers, but things passed peacefully. But it just goes to show the contrasts that we have.
Turkish communities in Germany have also done well to stay away from terror attacks, again it's down to Sufism, and the Turks have always been the traditional enemy of salafism, and crushed them through forces over the course of several centuries.
Anyway, just thought I would share my thoughts.
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