MODERATE Muslim scholars said yesterday that there was nothing in Koranic texts that could be used by extremists to justify suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism.

Where texts advocate cruel punishments for unbelievers, scholars say that they should be read within the context of the times when they were written.

Muslims in Britain are living in fear of rising Islamophobia and reprisals for the bombings in London carried out in the name of Allah. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, warned the country yesterday against a “mindless backlash” against Muslims.

Critics of Islam argue that extremists justify their actions by citing verses from the Koran as well as other texts.

But Muslim scholars, who are struggling to ensure that the War on Terror does not become a war on Islam, argue that the Koran, along with the Hadith, the collection of sayings and doings of Muhammad, and the Siras, the traditional biographies of Muhammad, must be read in the context of when they were written.

One example is the passage used to justify the beheading of hostages. The Koran says: “When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads.” (47.4) Similarly, verses apparently advocating peace can be twisted to justify violence. One verse, 5.32, says that anyone who kills a person kills the whole human race, and likewise anyone who saves a life “shall be regarded as though he had saved all mankind”.

But the same verse also gives exceptions to the rule, including punishment for anyone who commits “corruption” or “villainy” in the land. And the next verse states: “Those that make war against God and His apostle and spread disorder in the land shall be put to death or crucified or have their hands and feet cut off on alternate sides.”

Abdullah Faisal, an imam in North London, was jailed in 2003 for nine years for racial incitement and soliciting murder after he preached literal interpretations of texts such as: “When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them and lie in ambush everywhere for them.” (9.4) Most of the country’s 1,000 mosques have one or more imams, assisted by teachers and other helpers. A tiny minority, if any, preach jihad, or holy war, against the infidel.

Muslim scholars believe that the roots of the present difficulties are political, not religious, and are becoming increasingly concerned that the association between terrorism and jihad benefits the fanatics by shrouding their violence in the sanctity of religion. They fear that this will give a more attractive gloss to the terrorists and impede police efforts.

Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, an imam and teacher in Leicester, said: “Removing certain verses from the text of the Koran is out of the question. We see the Koran as the word of God. But the Koran is not meant to be read out of context.

“This book was revealed over a period of 23 years. Within those years of revelation, the social, economic and political situation of Muslims was constantly changing.”

He said that each time a verse was revealed it came with a code or “circumstance of revelation” explaining why. Some verses were tailored towards specific individuals, times or circumstances and others abrogated certain verses revealed before.

For centuries, through the Middle Ages and beyond, Muslim scholars applied these rules to the Koran. Sheikh Mogra said that extremists who took texts out of context to preach murder and suicide could be likened to a person who went out today and attacked Germans in obedience to Churchill’s wartime injunction to fight them on the beaches, seas, oceans and in the air.

“We as teachers continue to teach these verses in their original context. That is our duty,” he said.

Mufti Abdul Qadir Barkatulla, of the Islamic Association of North London, whose title indicates that he has the authority to issue religious decrees, said that one difficulty was the lack of knowledge about their religion among Muslim youth.

“When they become teenagers they are bewildered,” he said. “Then they can become excited without understanding everything in its proper context and they jump on the bandwagon after a short period of learning. There is a crisis of confidence between the youth and imams. The youth no longer look for guidance to the local scholars and imams. They look abroad.”

Basil Mustafa, of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, said that Islam did not permit the killing of human beings unless ordered by a court of law. The Koran also forbade suicide. “According to my knowledge there is nothing in the Koran that could justify suicide bombings,” he said.

Muslim texts are considered sacred and are rarely subjected to the kind of analysis applied to the Bible. Most Christian scholars today believe that the Bible was inspired by God but was the work of men and women writing in the context of their times. German scholars pioneered biblical criticism as an academic discipline from the 19th century.

Creationists and conservative evangelicals still believe the entire Bible to be the inerrant word of God, but redactional criticism has indicated that there were at least five separate authors of the first five books of the Bible alone, and that three different Isaiahs were rolled into one.

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