Cotabato City– Sheikh Maher Bin Hamad Al-Mueaqly, the revered Imam of Saudi Arabia’s Makkah Grand Mosque, for a series of lectures in this city, Marawi and Davao to extol Islam as a “religion of peace.”
Sheikh Al-Mueaqly, a renowned advocate of moderate Islam, arrived in Manila Friday and proceeded to Marawi City the following day on a mission organized by the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Call and Guidance, a report published in the Arab News daily said.
The newspaper report said the Makkah Grand Mosque imam was booked for lectures in the cities of Marawi, Davao and Cotabato.
The visit of Imam Al-Mueaqly was reportedly requested by Muslim Filipino clerics in order to remind young Muslims of their duty to promote and preserve peace amid perceptions that the jihadist ideology of the ISIS is being spread across the globe, including Lanao del Sur and other Muslim communities in Mindanao.
Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Alonto-Adiong Jr. hosted the sermon-like lecture on the true essence of Islam at the provincial capitol complex gymnasium in Marawi City.
Adiong’s office staff said thousands of Maranaos packed the provincial gymnasium to listen to the imam’s lecture.
On his way to Marawi City from the Laguindingan airport in Misamis Oriental, the imam’s convoy passed by rows of hundreds of Muslim children who lined the highway of Balo-I, Lanao del Norte, waving colorful flags while chanting “Tala’ al-Badru ‘Alayna,” an old Islamic song of prayer for peace and well-wishes, sources said.
Local police and military contingents secured the travel and visit of the revered Saudi Arabian cleric, it was learned.
The Markazosshabab Al-Muslim Fil Filibbien and other moderate religious groups in Lanao lauded the initiatives of Adiong in reviving the relationship between the Muslim locals and the Arab world, which was strained by the recent kidnapping of an Arab national.
In his statement on the visit of Sheikh Al-Mueaqly, Adiong reiterated his condemnation against extremism in Muslim Mindanao, hinting that an unabated preaching of jihadist ideology could evolve into armed movement.
Adiong is the grandson of the late Senator Domocao Alonto Sr., a fellow founder of the Rabitatul Alamin (World Muslim League) that now encompasses most Muslim countries.
In another report, local supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Lanao del Sur were reportedly irked by the visit of Sheikh Al-Mueaqly.
Leaders of the local ISIS fanatics, belonging to the jihadist Ghuraba group of the Khilaffa Islamiyah Movement (KIM), reportedly resented the Imam’s visit and even forbade their followers from joining the welcoming masses, sources from Marawi City said.
“Leaders and preachers of the fanatic group even staged a separate event, also on Saturday, and called for jihad (holy war) in pursuit of the Islamic Caliphate ideology espoused by the ISIS leadership,” a Maranao informant told the Bulletin by phone.
Sources privy to local jihadist preaching said the Lanao-based Ghuraba is backed by a few Arabic school operators in promoting calls for militant Islamic State resembling the ISIS.
They said the group was involved in recent armed atrocities including the assassination of an American national in Cagayan de Oro City, killing of soldiers in separate attacks in Marawi City and Lanao del Sur, and the kidnapping of an Arab missionary while conducting an inventory of Arab financial donations to Arabic schools in the province. (Ali G. Macabalang)
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