"MY BIGGEST CONCERN IS THE YOUTH THAT TAKE UP ARMS AND TO FIGHT OVERSEAS" FORMER IMAM OF AUSTRALIA'S LARGEST MOSQUE

HE was once Australia’s most controversial Muslim cleric — now he talks to the dead.



After a year-long spiritual sojourn in the Middle-East, Sheik Taj El-Din Hamid Hilaly has returned to Sydney with a “new vision” for the ­nation. And he says the Muslim community is fractured and needs better direction from its spiritual leaders.



The former Imam of Australia’s largest mosque is now vowing to visit the graves of Muslims at Rookwood Cemetery every day to find peace among the dead.



Sheik Hilaly, the former Imam at Lakemba mosque, has spoken of his concerns for the Muslim community, saying too many young Australians were taking up arms to join foreign conflicts.



“My biggest fear is the youth that take up arms and go to fight overseas,” he said.



“People are getting prepared as if they’re going back to World War I and many of them don’t know their duty to the country that has given them peace — Australia.



“The people involved in these conflicts are like a large group of blind people in a room, who have been given weapons and have been told to fight those around them.”



In his first interview since his return, the Sheik hit out at his former employer, the Lebanese Muslim Association, saying it was in “a drugged haze”.



“Like many other associations, they don’t seem to have any direction,” he said.



“They seem like people walking in a drugged haze, like somebody has given them anaesthetic and they don’t know where they’re going.”



READ MORE

http://ift.tt/S0tiPF