British Muslims have been blasted for not doing enough to challenge extremists and the promoters of terrorism, a senior Islamic scholar has said.Dilwar Hussain of the Islamic Foundation has said Muslims have done too little to produce leaders who can educate young people in Britain and guide them away from extremists.Hussain says moderate Muslims need to do more to combat the rise of terrorism, the Daily Star reported.The head of the policy research centre at the Islamic Foundation, Hussain said Muslims have allowed extremism to breed in British cities, and claimed hate preachers like Abu Hamza were not being challenged.Hamza, 50, was jailed for six years in 2004 for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred and could be extradited to face charges in the US for allegedly setting up an al-Qaida training camp.Other preachers include banned cleric Omar Bakri, 50, who fled to Lebanon, and London extremist Anjem Choudary, 41.Hussain attacked the ‘hands-off’ attitude of moderate Muslims in a report for the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).He said: “Much could be said about Britain's foreign policy mistakes in stoking injustice, leading to anger and frustration. But to blame only such foreign affairs for terrorism is not nearly enough. Muslims did not challenge strongly enough the preachers of hate and the peddlers of simplistic, yet nihilistic, solutions that were able to tap into that anger and frustration.”“Nor did they create adequate religious institutions or leadership that could connect with young people and educate them in an idiom they would understand, something that could have protected them when challenged by extremists’ discourse,” he added.He wants to see a liberal brand of Islam tailored to British conditions.
