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Non-Muslims who believe in
God can make a pilgrimage to Islamic holy sites in Mecca,
according to Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qathafi.
The A merican
president, he added, can visit Mecca as long as he is not an
atheist, whom he said, Islam forbids to enter such sites
as mosques.
Addressing
thousands of Muslims at
Nakivubo Stadium in Kampala yesterday, Qathafi asked: “Who
says non-Muslims cannot go to the Kabbah?”
Quoting the Koran, Qathafi
added that the Kabbah was the house of God for all people.
“How come Muslims monopolize the Kabbah? It’s the right of
everybody to go round the Kabbah. It’s non-believers who are
disgraced.”
He added tha t
Mohamed, the founder of Islam, was the “only messenger of
God to mankind and the seal of all prophets”.
Jesus, he said, was born
without a father, in a miracle of God, and was able to bring
the Bible to life. But after him, he argued, “the heavens
have been silent without any new revelations until
doomsday”.
Mohamed, he noted, did not
perform miracles although he acknowledged that Jesus did.
Qathafi then blasted
Muslim preachers who say Mohamed performed miracles just
because Jesus did.
“ Mohamed
told us that Jesus can bring back the dead and healed the
sick,” Qathafi explained. “We believe in the Mohamed who did
not perform miracles,” he asserted. He described as “weak in
faith” preachers who purport to perform miracles because
“the Koran is enough without miracles”.
Spurred by chanting
Muslims who filled the stadium, Qathafi, in a 90-minute
speech, said the Koran was the only holy Book sent by God,
but Muslims equally believe in the Bible.
But, according to Qathafi,
the current Bible was not the one revealed to Jesus and the
current Old Testament is not the one Allah gave to Moses.
Reference to Prophet
Mohamed in the Bible, Qathafi argued, could have been
deleted and called for the search for “the original Bible”.
Moses, the said, predicted
the coming of Mohamed and that Jesus, too, talked of a
prophet that would come after him.
Jesus is mentioned in the
Koran 25 times, Moses, 138 and Mary, 38 times, Qathafi said.
“Any book that doesn’t mention Mohamed isn’t true and is
forged.” He said the Koran held Jesus and Moses in high
esteem.
“We cannot be Muslims
unless we believe in Jesus and Moses. The Koran is right.
It’s the only book from which nothing has been deleted.”
He contested the use of
the birth and death of Jesus to count the world calendar.
“The world is fanatical and sectarian.” He blasted the
countries which published a cartoon depicting Mohamed as a
war-monger. Such people, he said, were “ignorant, sick and
against humankind, Allah and Jesus who believes in Mohamed”.
Speaking after Qathafi,
Museveni congratulated Muslims upon the birth of Mohamed. He
said he was amused by Qathafi’s assertion that anybody who
believes in one God is a Muslim. “It means that I can also
be a Muslim.”
However, Museveni said he
would consult the Catholic and Protestant leaders to explain
why Mohamed was not mentioned in the Bible. He said Uganda
has religious tolerance.
Present at the prayers
were presidents Pierre Nkurunziza (Burundi), Sem Ismail Omar
Guelleh (Djibouti), Amani Abeid Karume (Zanzibar), Amadou
Toumani Toure (Mali), Abdullahi Yusuf (Somalia) and Prime
Minister of Guinea Conakry, Lansana Kouyate.
(…) Qathafi, wearing a
snow white Africa wear, arrived in Nakivubo at 1:20pm to
chants of “Allah Akbar (God is Great).
He walked down the stage,
removed his shoes and glasses and stood behind a microphone
under the sweltering sun.
The other presidents stood
a short distance behind him as he recited prayers in Arabic
in a deep voice that reverberated across the stadium. |
