On Oct. 26, a suicide bomber targeted worshipers celebrating the Muslim religious festival Eid Al-Adha in a mosque in the Faryab province of Afghanistan. It was not the only distressful attack during the Eid Al-Adha, nor was this a new challenge.
On Sept. 27, 2008, I met then-Secretary of State Condolezza Rice in New York in the aftermath of a surge in deadly bomb and suicide attacks in some Organization of Islamic Cooperation member states. A week before, Islamabad, and the day of our meeting, Damascus had been shaken by deadly bomb attacks.
I pointed out to Rice the unjustifiable use of suicide attacks and qualified them as barbarous and forbidden in Islam. I underlined that both suicide and murder were grave sins. The true teachings of Islam sanctify human life, preach tolerance and compassion, and forbid suicide. Though I and other leaders in the Muslim world had never hesitated to take an unambiguous stand against the scourge of terrorism, the establishment of the office of the U.S. Special Envoy to the OIC that year reiterated our messages.
During this year's Eid Al Adha, the public desperately hoped to see whether a cease-fire would hold in Syria. To our dismay, blood continued to be shed. A car bomb blasted in Damascus, and government warplanes bombed suburbs of Damascus and other townships. Reportedly, Sheikh Moussa Mosque in the Harasta suburb of Damascus was not spared.
Iraqi Shiites and Turkomans were also targeted during the Eid days. Muslim Rohingyas, an ethnic minority in Myanmar, were under attack and had neither any respite nor spirit to celebrate the Eid.
Attacking and violating places of worship has become a common tool for expressing resentment and humiliating the "other" in the Rakhine state of Myanmar and elsewhere.
From the foiled extremist attack in Kazan, Tatarstan to the fears of attacks by Boko Haram in Nigeria, there were many spoilers of the Eid spirit for the Muslims. Then, toward the end of the Eid, a suicide bomber drove a car into a Nigerian church, killing Christians. Christian youth responded by reprisal attacks against Muslims.
This is certainly not the spirit of the religious feasts that the Muslims around the world used to have. Generations of Muslims cherished with pride a tradition of religious coexistence and mutual respect in places like Damascus. Muslims, Christians, and Jews celebrated each other's religious holidays.
This was also the culture treasured in my hometown of Istanbul for centuries. Sectarian violence is a relatively new phenomenon for Muslims. They have to reclaim their peaceful traditions. Best practices of coexistence in history should be promoted in all societies and in textbooks. Muslims should not accept that political, cultural, tribal and economic struggles are framed as interreligious conflicts; nor should extremists be given any recognition to speak on behalf of all Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and others.
There is certainly a role to be played by local, national, secular, and religious leaders and civil society including youth and women in promoting reconciliation. Ethnic and religious divisions provoked by the negative heritage of colonialism, humiliation of foreign interventions, and misdeeds of repressive and corrupt regimes might have damaged the social and cultural fabrics of societies.
It is imperative that we continue our work to stem the ascendency of extremism and the hijacking of religious values in our societies. The international community has the responsibility to curb the wave of radicalization that causes indiscriminate violence.
The way out of the cycle of violence is to foster religious moderation and understanding and establish democratic rule, transparency, and justice so that all social spectrums can be part of the political process and representation.
We should also work toward socioeconomic development for better income and fair distribution of wealth in order to remove the bitter taste of social injustice that engenders animosity and recruitment for the extremist ideologies.
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu is the secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.