Sheikh Qaradawi (Ground Zero Mosque Imam's Inspirational Guiding Light) Says, No Relations Between Christian and Muslim World

That's right, Imam Rauf loves Sheikh Qaradawi, who he calls a "reformer" and holds up as an inspiration and a hope for the Islamic world.

From the Financial Times:

During a recent Friday sermon, Sheikh Yusef al-Qaradawi, arguably the world’s leading scholar of Sunni Islam, uttered a few words that drew little notice internationally but could have big implications for future relations between Christians and Muslims.


“I was for the possibility of bridging the gap between the east and the west but recently I have changed my mind on this issue, especially since the west wants to impose its values and traditions on us,” Mr Qaradawi told his congregation at Doha’s Omar bin Al Khattab Mosque in a televised sermon in October.

“West is west and east is east. They do not recognise or follow our traditions and customs, so we should not follow theirs,” Mr Qaradawi said, echoing Rudyard Kipling, the British author.

Mr Qaradawi, 84, emigrated to Qatar in 1961 to avoid persecution in his native Egypt. His many fatwas, or religious decisions, are passed on to millions of Muslims worldwide via his long-running Al Jazeera talk show and Islam Online, a website. In 2008, Foreign Policy magazine ranked him the world’s third most influential intellectual.

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