Muslims Around The World Condemn Charlie Hebdo Attack

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Muslims in France and around the world have banded together to strongly condemn the deadliest terror attack the country has seen in the past two decades.

Three masked gunmen stormed the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine that has become notorious for its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. One of the men reportedly shouted “Allahu akbar” as they unleashed a barrage of bullets that left at least twelve dead.

Muslim leaders and activists immediately denounced the terrorists actions, reiterating the verse in the Quran that tells Muslims when one kills just one innocent person, it is as if he has killed all of humanity.

The Grand Mosque of Paris, one of the largest in France, issued a statement on its website shortly after the attacks, saying its community was “shocked” and “horrified” by the violence.

We strongly condemn these kind of acts and we expect the authorities to take the most appropriate measures. Our community is stunned by what just happened. It’s a whole section of our democracy that is seriously affected. This is a deafening declaration of war. Times have changed, and we are now entering a new era of confrontation.


The Union of Islamic Organizations of France also responded on its website, writing: “The UOIF condemns in the strongest terms this criminal attack, and these horrible murders. The UOIF expresses its deepest condolences to the families and all the employees of Charlie Weekly.”

Hassen Chalghoumi, imam of the Drancy mosque in Paris’s Seine-Saint-Denis suburb, spoke with France’s BFM TV and condemned the attackers, saying, “Their barbarism has nothing to do with Islam.”

“I am extremely angry,” Chalghoumi said. “These are criminals, barbarians. They have sold their soul to hell. This is not freedom. This is not Islam and I hope the French will come out united at the end of this.”

Countless Muslim activists, leaders and authors took to social media to express horror and dismay at the attack:

34 thoughts on “Muslims Around The World Condemn Charlie Hebdo Attack”

    • That’s the problem. You can’t enforce love, faith, obedience, goodness, charity – it has to come from the heart and by good example. There has to be the freedom to choose or reject God. It’s the same issue Communism has.

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      • Nice thought, Kathleen.
        …if not quite accurate.
        Obedience CAN ~ and often is among the ranks of the human animal* ~ enforced.
        So can/is ‘charity’ ~ if it’s part of a tithing/taxation/social-pressure system.
        The paradox is that real ‘charity’ wouldn’t have a name because nobody other than you (or your god) would know about it ~ and hence it wouldn’t be
        ‘charity’, because that’s not the reason one does ‘good’ things. One does them simply because they need to be done.
        I personally had an experience along those lines recently that, for the first time in my memory made me feel humble. And none of the half-dozen (rather ‘important’ people) involved considered my role ~ or their role in matters stretching back more than 20 years ~ in any way ‘charitable’. That was all that prevented ‘humility’ being ’embarrassing’.

        * I’ve made the point in other contexts recently that a sign of the how badly our species has buggered up ‘life’ can be found in the reality that throughout known history in EVERY species the worst punishment for the most unspeakable ‘sins’ has been banishment from the community. (We even have our gods taking that stance: sinners are cast out…and into hell.)

        And yet, in our ukcfed-up social, religious and moral world have turned that principle on its head. Unless you get the permission from ‘The Authority’ you are NOT able to opt out. My gripe was ‘Why, just because I’m parked in this geographic spot on our planet, MUST I be identified as ‘An Australian’?? Why MUST I obey local laws made by people people who neither care nor give a stuff about me? …or pay homage to ‘Australian values’…and get weepy at anzac-day performances….and frothy-mouthed at football matches? etcetcetcetc. and all that crap.
        ….and not have the option of just walking away.

        It’s a PERFECT perversion of the ‘real’ world ( the Creation, if you like). And the rot set in when gods were invented by the likes of Moses in order to seize control of the sheeple…..and then started cutting their throats (or crucifying!) them in the name of those gods, in the pursuit of the enforce of ” love, faith, obedience, goodness, charity .”
        Remember when Abraham was willing to cut his own son’s throat for god ~ in much the way and for the same reasons as isis is doing today?
        Remember when Moses ordered the slaughter of “more than three thousand” other jews (and instituted taxation and the priesthood in the process!) rather than ‘casting them out beyond the Pale’…..as had ALWAYS been the practice, and still is among all other known living things ~ including plants and bacteria?
        Remember when the Inquisitions were burning people alive to ‘save their souls’.

        GOD IS GREAT!! ~ Moohammed (sic.)

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      • Yes thanks Kathleen.

        He ventured off to work this morning for the first time this week, just for a few hours he assures me. He’s the boss, so he has to. Getting slowly better, thank God! Thanks for prayers everyone.

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  2. Same old same old, Mon. These yahoos are merely following in the footsteps of their christian predecessors. (eg. Jesus never censored anyone ~ even Old Nick…..Nor, interestingly did Satan ever censor Jesus. 😉 ).

    But, as someone once said:- “Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it.”
    The bastardries of judaism, christianity or islamism could not assume their totalitarian positions ~ and activities ~ without the support of the grassroots. It’s quite obviously what the shitfight for market-share is all about. No Police State can exist without extortionate taxation.
    Unlike Satan, who only wants your soul, the godly-gang wants your money.

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  3. I think ‘moderate Muslims’ should do more than condemn it. If you can’t handle ridicule of your religion, cartoons of Allah or God, etc … then you’re not a moderate Muslim.
    Also…it seems as if we’re dealing with smoke and mirrors continually…

    “We’re not ALL terrorists … only SOME of us…”

    That is of very little comfort, I’m afraid.

    You are stereotyping yourselves beautifully.

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      • How do YOU know?

        I repeat: the 23 moslems who ADMIT to being terrorists couldn’t exist ~ let alone operate ~ without the support of the vast majority. And it’s also why the sects comprising the vast majority commit all sorts of atrocities in seeking ‘converts’ from the other sects of the same religion. (Often supported by those other non-terrorists commonly known as ‘The USA’.)
        The same principles attach to ALL populist/religious movements, including the german branch (and others) of naziism, the communists (the soviets thanked god for the german invasion, which attracted the vast majority of ‘non-terrorist’/non-combative of russians and others to the Cause…and thereby consolidated the god-like status of Stalin, confirmed by a nationwide survey recently.)
        Ditto Vietnam, Cuba, Iran, etc. etc. etc. Even the US ~ according to King George and the Injuns.
        And let’s not overlook the IRA of legend, who for nearly a century didn’t have a single member or adherent…….. according to those asked . LOL!

        But their non-membership fought the Great British Empire to a standstill.

        The cowboys could never have Won the West had there been no terrorist injuns.

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      • You were asked “How do YOU know?”
        …and, typically, instead of responding to the question you repeat the assertion ~ sans ANY kind of evidence.
        ….and on what basis do you imply that ‘religion’ is NOT ALL “about power”.
        can you suggest ANY other motivation for it. Here’s a clue: The First Commandment ~ repeated in myriad other ways in judaeo-christianity, islam and any other religion you can think of.
        Finally, every single example I’ve provided ~ and you can imagine ~ demonstrates quite clearly that the ‘majority’ ALWAYS follow the fanatics.
        No jews ever denounced the zealots; nor irishmen the IRA.
        It’s also what party-politics is all about.
        …and when the ‘majority’ began losing interest the ‘fanatics’ made voting compulsory.
        Can ANYone remember any element of ‘the majority’ which objected, let alone refused to co-operate?
        Currently applying the GST to fresh food is being engineered by the ‘fanatics’.
        I won’t hold my breath whilst waiting for the majority to revolt. If it runs to form it’ll bitch for about three minutes and then come to understand why it’s necessary….or even a good idea.
        ….and they’ll bow their heads and pay the new, increased tithe, which the ‘fanatics’ will apply to the furtherance of their own ends.

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      • But isn’t that the same as saying … “We’re not ALL Nazis … only SOME of us…”
        Which is also true ”’ that’s exactly what they said.

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      • Speaking from intimate knowledge, Jimbo, I can tell you it was the very rare ~ and shortlived ~ german who ever said that; from both fear and hope for personal gain.
        ‘Getting with the strength’ is a weakness of human nature.

        But it sometimes cut the other way too: Claus Von Stauffenberg. Irwin Rommel and Oskar Schindler spring to mind. All nazis of note.
        But even such men of renown kept fairly stumm vocally, and co-operated with the ‘system’ to whatever degree they saw as being necessary.

        And, even supposing many moslems, consider themselves in that position (of which I’d need to be convinced) even less-than-enthusiastic support is non-the-less support.

        The kids standing around the schoolyard watching a bully bash a gentler kid are the only ones ‘making it happen’.
        It’s even likely that not everyone on the scene approved of the adulterous woman being stoned, but co-operated in a required ritual dating back to the nazi Moses in remaining silent……as we see (though ‘authority’ for the story is dubious as can be) it only required a single active objection to put a stop to it. (not just an eyes-averted tsk tsk tsk.).

        There are countless examples of the ‘fanatics’ representing the ‘majority’.
        In general terminology. I still don’t see how our host ~ or anyone else ~ can establish percentages of who’s up who for the rent.

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      • Muslim Community USA Spokesperson Qasim Rashid condemned the attack in Paris and refuted the notion that Islam is inherently violent

        She said: This is not about religion. This is about political power, this is about uneducated, ignorant youth who are being manipulated by clerics and extremists. And this is why it’s all the more important for us, as the moderates, regardless of faith, to stay united and combat this.

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      • All well and good; and I’ll accept at face value what you say she says.
        But that establishes nothing OTHER than what she says. ie. it casts NO evidence in re. what percentage of ‘moslems’ behave, feel or believe accordingly ~ any more than does Tony Abbott when he’s addressing “my friends and fellow Australians, “.

        The fact is many (and we don’t know HOW many, but their numbers DO include teenage girls) of those ‘fellow australians’ are sneaking overseas to fight for isis. It’s not a tiny minority who’s supporting and facilitating that….or even just keeping their mouths shut about what they see and know. And it all costs a monza.
        Just a few months ago I, personally, had arranged to buy a not-real-cheap property up in the mountains behind Strathbogie from one Hussein something-or-other who asked a few probing questions and then gently dropped the hint that he’d quite like to be paid in cash. But the deal wasn’t completed because it seems he was arrested on the basis that the property had been used as some sort of training facility. Presumably the proceeds of the sale wouldn’t be deposited in the bank.
        It was all reminiscient of how the croation ‘terrorists’ had set up a heap of training camps and sent thousands ‘liberation fighters’ to yugoslavia some years ago. THEY, too were standing over croations all over australia for ‘tithes’ on their incomes.) I did time with one such who did refuse to ‘co-operate with the fanatics’ and killed two of them with a knife whilst they were trying to ‘convince him to put up and shut up’. I never heard of any other ‘majority’ (tens of thousands) of croations who refused to co-operate with the ‘fanatics’. Their degree of involvement will never be found out. But we DO know they hated ‘yugoslavia’ to the extent that they allied themselves with Hitler’s lot on the basis of that hatred.
        …and ran extermination camps of such brutality that even hardened nazis couldn’t stomach.
        To the extent that generally stay-out-of-it-and-mind-one’s-own-business ~ and mostly anti-communist ~ ‘yugoslavs’ like my father were sending money overseas to help buy better tanks for Tito’s communist army. It’s all stuff that never made it into the news-of-the-day, but nonetheless involved many tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of nominal australians.
        In the same way ~ and in my experience ~ the aid and assistance of ‘majority’ australian (jewish) citizens helped bolster the power of zionist ‘fanatics’…..or at the very least didn’t stand up against them.

        And I’ll lay odds that Qasim Rashid isn’t a spokesperson for Alquaida, Iranians, Iraqis, Afghans, Syrians, Saudis, Pakistanis, Turks, and the millions of other supposedly non-violent moslems around the world (like our neighbours to the north). Including those in Paris, London, Stockholm or any number of other places.
        …including the ‘silent majority’ of moslems even in her own backyard.

        I repeat ~ and I think the evidence is clear despite the claim that “This is not about religion. This is about political power” that the whole point of the invention of religion and the appropriate gods IS aboutv the getting and keeping of political power.
        Even the earliest pharoahs ~ and the witch-doctors before them ~ were designated to be gods…..for political reasons.
        And this —> ” this is about uneducated, ignorant youth who are being manipulated by clerics and extremists.” has but one response:- ‘Twas ever so’.

        Christianity, too, is proud of it’s martyrs. I learnt about their devoted role as lion food by about the age of six, in Sunday school.

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      • Dunno what happened to the link. Herewith the full article, approximately affirming my assertions. (There’s also a fair bit about her online ~ including Youtube.) –>

        Dunno what happened to the link. Herewith the real text.

        How to Answer the Paris Terror Attack
        The West must stand up for freedom—and acknowledge the link between Islamists’ political ideology and their religious beliefs.
        By
        Ayaan Hirsi Ali
        Jan. 7, 2015 6:08 p.m. ET
        279 COMMENTS

        After the horrific massacre Wednesday at the French weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, perhaps the West will finally put away its legion of useless tropes trying to deny the relationship between violence and radical Islam.

        This was not an attack by a mentally deranged, lone-wolf gunman. This was not an “un-Islamic” attack by a bunch of thugs—the perpetrators could be heard shouting that they were avenging the Prophet Muhammad. Nor was it spontaneous. It was planned to inflict maximum damage, during a staff meeting, with automatic weapons and a getaway plan. It was designed to sow terror, and in that it has worked.

        The West is duly terrified. But it should not be surprised.
        ENLARGE
        Getty Images

        If there is a lesson to be drawn from such a grisly episode, it is that what we believe about Islam truly doesn’t matter. This type of violence, jihad, is what they, the Islamists, believe.

        There are numerous calls to violent jihad in the Quran. But the Quran is hardly alone. In too much of Islam, jihad is a thoroughly modern concept. The 20th-century jihad “bible,” and an animating work for many Islamist groups today, is “The Quranic Concept of War,” a book written in the mid-1970s by Pakistani Gen. S.K. Malik. He argues that because God, Allah, himself authored every word of the Quran, the rules of war contained in the Quran are of a higher caliber than the rules developed by mere mortals.

        In Malik’s analysis of Quranic strategy, the human soul—and not any physical battlefield—is the center of conflict. The key to victory, taught by Allah through the military campaigns of the Prophet Muhammad, is to strike at the soul of your enemy. And the best way to strike at your enemy’s soul is through terror. Terror, Malik writes, is “the point where the means and the end meet.” Terror, he adds, “is not a means of imposing decision upon the enemy; it is the decision we wish to impose.”

        Those responsible for the slaughter in Paris, just like the man who killed the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004, are seeking to impose terror. And every time we give in to their vision of justified religious violence, we are giving them exactly what they want.

        In Islam, it is a grave sin to visually depict or in any way slander the Prophet Muhammad. Muslims are free to believe this, but why should such a prohibition be forced on nonbelievers? In the U.S., Mormons didn’t seek to impose the death penalty on those who wrote and produced “The Book of Mormon,” a satirical Broadway sendup of their faith. Islam, with 1,400 years of history and some 1.6 billion adherents, should be able to withstand a few cartoons by a French satirical magazine. But of course deadly responses to cartoons depicting Muhammad are nothing new in the age of jihad.

        Moreover, despite what the Quran may teach, not all sins can be considered equal. The West must insist that Muslims, particularly members of the Muslim diaspora, answer this question: What is more offensive to a believer—the murder, torture, enslavement and acts of war and terrorism being committed today in the name of Muhammad, or the production of drawings and films and books designed to mock the extremists and their vision of what Muhammad represents?

        To answer the late Gen. Malik, our soul in the West lies in our belief in freedom of conscience and freedom of expression. The freedom to express our concerns, the freedom to worship who we want, or not to worship at all—such freedoms are the soul of our civilization. And that is precisely where the Islamists have attacked us. Again.

        How we respond to this attack is of great consequence. If we take the position that we are dealing with a handful of murderous thugs with no connection to what they so vocally claim, then we are not answering them. We have to acknowledge that today’s Islamists are driven by a political ideology, an ideology embedded in the foundational texts of Islam. We can no longer pretend that it is possible to divorce actions from the ideals that inspire them.

        This would be a departure for the West, which too often has responded to jihadist violence with appeasement. We appease the Muslim heads of government who lobby us to censor our press, our universities, our history books, our school curricula. They appeal and we oblige. We appease leaders of Muslim organizations in our societies. They ask us not to link acts of violence to the religion of Islam because they tell us that theirs is a religion of peace, and we oblige.

        What do we get in return? Kalashnikovs in the heart of Paris. The more we oblige, the more we self-censor, the more we appease, the bolder the enemy gets.

        There can only be one answer to this hideous act of jihad against the staff of Charlie Hebdo. It is the obligation of the Western media and Western leaders, religious and lay, to protect the most basic rights of freedom of expression, whether in satire on any other form. The West must not appease, it must not be silenced. We must send a united message to the terrorists: Your violence cannot destroy our soul.

        Ms. Hirsi Ali, a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, is the author of “Infidel” (2007). Her latest book, “Heretic: The Case for a Muslim Reformation,” will be published in April by HarperCollins.
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      • Islamic organisations in Australia have condemned the actions of gunmen who massacred 12 staff at a Paris satirical magazine.

        They said for staff of Charlie Hebdo to depict and to mock the prophet Muhammad was offensive and against Islamic teachings, but it did not justify violence.
        Islamic Council of Victoria spokesman Kuranda Seyit said the council was “very disturbed” by the shooting.

        “We don’t know what their motivation was but if they [the gunmen] were offended by what this person [the magazine editor] was doing, it just doesn’t justify shooting him.”

        He said Muslims are offended when the prophet is depicted in a derogatory way because the prophet is regarded as a perfect human being.
        Muslims are very emotional about the way their prophet is treated or referred to in the public domain because of the importance he plays in an individual’s life.

        “He’s the perfect model of how to be, and some people can take it to heart when he’s depicted in an offensive way.”

        Mr Seyit says there’s no direct Koranic verses that refer to the depiction of the prophet, although the Koran is against the depiction of human faces or animals in places of worship.

        It was after the death of the prophet that Islamic scholars ruled that if the prophet was depicted in an offensive way, it would be an insult to Muslims and Islam.

        Mr Seyit said the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the prophet would only be a crime in a fully Islamic sharia-compliant society. But such a society doesn’t exist.

        The shooters were acting above any law, with no government’s sanction. “Whoever these people [the assassins] were, if they were doing it under the pretext of Islamic motivation, they’re totally wrong. You can’t do that in the first place, and to kill a person is a grave sin.”

        He said “to take the law into your own hands is definitely unacceptable and not sanctioned by any Islamic body”.

        Keysar Trad, spokesman for the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, said the massacre was “contrary to the Islamic teachings that we grew up with”.

        “We don’t condone this violence in any way,” he said. “We don’t understand why people would go off the rails to such an extent that they would commit an act of violence.

        “We don’t agree with the cartoons, but by the same token, our religion does not allow us to cause any harm to people who might do them.

        “Anything that is derogatory to our religious figures of course is offensive. When somebody attempts to offend you, you can take offence but it doesn’t mean that you should resort to violence at all.”

        He said the Koran does not talk about the depiction of the prophet. But the other key source of Islamic teachings, the Hadith – traditions based on the words of the prophet inspired by god – discourages the depiction of living things.

        Mr Trad said this was to discourage idolatry or hero worship of good people or ancestors.

        He said Hebdo Charlie artists had defamed a major religious figure but the prophet Muhammad himself “did not retaliate on anyone who said mean and nasty things to him”.

        “The [magazine] people, whatever they might have said about the prophet, we believe that’s wrong, but it does not justify anyone physically attacking them. The tradition of the prophet is that he never attacked people who mocked or ridiculed him.

        “The only people he had a conflict with were the people who were actually inciting others towards violence or the people who were coming to physically attack him and his followers.

        “But those who just merely mocked or ridiculed, he won them over through kindness. There’s a verse in the Koran [chapter 41, verse 34] that clearly says, ‘Resist evil with goodness’.

        “He was always forgiving towards those who were rude or mocking towards him.”

        Mr Trad said Sunni Muslims were “a little more concerned about imagery” than Shiites. “But I don’t think it’s the sect in the religion that would lead to greater offence. I think it’s more so the individual – whatever’s going on in their mind.”

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    • “I think ‘moderate Muslims’ should do more than condemn it.”
      Like the moderate Christians did re the Irish terrorism in London, not too long ago?

      “You are stereotyping yourselves beautifully.”
      Strange that atrocities committed by Christians don’t get labelled as caused by Christianity.

      Yes, Muslim terrorists are more likely to invoke religion than their Christian counterparts in this era, but you don’t have to go back too far to see what has been done in the name of Christianity.

      I reckon all religious terrorists fool themselves into believing their motivation is religious, rather than power, money, or even an subconscious need to hate.

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  4. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, it’s being argued that, rather than merely condemning the killers, we should, in the name of free speech, republish the magazine’s work.

    But I agree with Jeff Sparrow, of course we condemn the Paris killers, but that doesn’t mean we need circulate the work of Charlie Hebdo. We can uphold their right to safety without endorsing what they published. We can support their right to publish such racially stereotyped cartoons, without following the same path.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-09/sparrow-we-should-support-charlie-hebdo-not-endorse-it/6007836%5B/quote%5D

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  5. Pingback: Dear Asghar, is a public flogging more acceptable than murder? | clapham common tree

  6. I find these constant reassurances are starting to sound very empty. How many “handfuls” do we need before we recognise a problem. And where is the widespread condemnation fo similar atrocities such as the case of Saif Badawi – its easy to condemn when you have no other option. More telling when you do it with some measure of consistency. https://claphamcommontree.wordpress.com/2015/01/10/dear-asghar-is-a-public-flogging-more-acceptable-than-murder/

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    • Yes, this is true. If violence is a bad thing, why such violence in their justice system.

      I asked this same question a little while back.

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    • Some are still clinging to an outworn culture of violence, just as some Christians do. I recently read a post by an Australian re Muslim immigrants – “Send them all back to kill each other, and the ones still left, nuke ’em.”

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      • We’re very focused on being outraged when out western bubbles are burst but seem unconcerned about the state of oppression in sharia countries like saudi and Pakistan where these religious principles are put in place. We’re so used to muslim women being invisible were numb to the oppression.

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