Anger in Houses of Faith

Leaders: No religion condones such attacks

By Merle English | STAFF WRITER

September 15, 2001

From mosques, temples, synagogues and churches, religious leaders Friday condemned the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center as a sin against God and humanity.

With federal authorities linking the attack to Islamic extremists, leaders of major faiths, including Muslims, said nothing in their beliefs condones such devastation.

"There is no religion, no sect, that can justify such kinds of action," Shakh Fadhil Al-Sahlani, imam of the Al-Khoei Islamic Center in Jamaica, said Friday following a prayer service for victims of the disaster.

"No matter what size of the attack, one person or 1,000, it is the same level, forbidden," Al-Sahlani said. " ... Hurting innocent people by even a single word is unlawful."

Imam Daud Hanif, spiritual leader of Mosque Baitul Zafar in Hollis, a branch of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam agreed.

"Such actions have nothing to do with the religion," he said. "They are totally from barbaric people."

Hindus condemned the attack as well, and said their faith allowed for firm action in response.

"Hindus are a patient people, but there is always a limit for that," said Uma Mysorekar, president of the Hindu Temple Society of North America in Flushing. "... We cannot sit back."

Rabbi Mordecai Waxman of Temple Israel in Great Neck said that Jewish people have been accustomed to tragedy. "The resolution to make a better world is really what we are called upon to do," he said.

Buddhists believe in cause and effect, said Helen Chiang, former general secretary and a member of the Buddhist Light International Association of New York in Flushing, suggesting the killers had bad karma.

"The terrorists didn't have wisdom," she said. "We know they have been brainwashed and misled by their leaders."

The Rev. Julian Gumbs, assistant chaplain at the American Bible Society, called the attack "a wake-up call." He added: "God calls us in times of trouble to call on his name."