BEIRUT: Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani rejects the widespread linkage of Islam to extremism, holding that militant Muslim organizations blamed for terrorist attacks in the world are the creation of foreign countries’ intelligence agencies. In an interview with The Daily Star, the Grand Mufti of the Republic also blamed the Future Movement of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri for strained ties with Dar al-Fatwa, the seat of the Sunni mufti, saying Future MPs are still boycotting him.

Asked for his assessment of extremist Muslim groups blamed for terror attacks around the world, Qabbani told The Daily Star Tuesday: “Any assessment of Islam that is distant from its substance and its content, which are based on mercy and openness toward others, is a mistaken assessment that does not reflect the spirit of Islam and its reality. Therefore, there is no such thing as extremist Islam.

“The foreigners’ portrayal of Islam in the guise of extremism is aimed at distorting the image of Islam and Muslims and also at making Muslims abhor their religion. It is also aimed at creating a hypothetical opponent of the West that can be used as a gateway to attack and tamper with the East,” he said.

Qabbani stressed that the rulings, teachings and practices of Islam show it to be a religion of “forgiveness, love, cooperation, centrism and openness that calls for respecting others [non-Muslims] and living with them in peace, prohibits killing, and punishes the killer even if he is a Muslim.”

Referring to militant Muslim groups blamed for terror attacks in the world, the mufti said: “This continuing extremism adopted by misled groups or fictitious organizations are all the work of foreign intelligence agencies and leading powers, which seek to strike Islam in its own countries and tarnish its image in various parts of the planet so that they can tamper with our countries’ security, control our economic systems and launch wars with a view to fully achieving their aims.

“But the killing continues falsely in the name of Islam,” Qabbani said, adding that crimes committed falsely in the name of religion are an attack on the Muslim faith.

Qabbani voiced understanding toward fears voiced by Christians about their presence in the Middle East, especially amid a wave of popular upheavals in the Arab world that has led to election victories by Islamist groups in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia. He said Muslims were keen on the freedom of Christian sects in the region.

“The Christians in this Levant are an indivisible part of the social fabric in it. They are not aliens, but citizens bound with their Muslim brothers by an identity of fully belonging to this Levant,” Qabbani said.

“Muslims are keen on the dignity and freedom of Christian sects in this Levant. This keenness on the part of Muslims is not a gift, but a duty dictated on us by our creed and belief,” the mufti said, adding: “But at the same time we show understanding toward fears felt today by Arab minorities, particularly Christians, because there are invisible parties that seek to spread panic in the Arab world in order to undermine the unity of Arab peoples and set the stage for foreign intervention on the pretext of protecting minorities.”

As for the domestic scene, Qabbani said Future MPs are still boycotting him, blaming the Future Movement for the rift between the two sides.

“We maintain good relations with everyone in Lebanon. There is no dispute between us and any of the political parties in Lebanon. But sometimes some [politicians] may interpret our position or openness as directed against him. Thus, he put his political team and loyalists in a state of dispute with the mufti of the republic and Dar al-Fatwa,” the mufti said.

Qabbani added that this had happened in the past with March 8 parties, followed by the current situation with the Future Movement.

“There is no problem between us and the Future Movement. They [Future Movement] sparked a hypothetical dispute with us and mobilized [people]. They boycotted Eid al-Fitr prayers with the mufti of the republic, in an unprecedented act, not even carried out by any of renegades in the history of Islam and Muslims,” Qabbani said.

“They boycotted the visit of the mufti of the republic to the villages of Arqoub in the south on Lebanon’s border with occupied Palestine. They are today boycotting Dar al-Fatwa and the mufti of the Republic,” he added.

Qabbani called on the Future Movement to reconsider its stance on “the mufti of the republic, who does not change his national stands an inch.”

At the root of the rift between the Future Movement and Dar al-Fatwa was Qabbani’s meeting last year with a Hezbollah delegation on the day the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon issued its indictment accusing four party members of involvement in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The Future Movement was also reported to have been irked by Qabbani’s meeting with the Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdel-Karim Ali.

The Future Movement’s relations with Hezbollah have been strained since Saad Hariri’s Cabinet was toppled by the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance in January last year.

Qabbani said the aim of last week’s visit to Lebanon by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who met with the country’s top political and spiritual leaders, including the mufti, was to show “Turkey’s keenness to see safety and stability in Lebanon amid the current conditions in the Middle East, since Turkey has a major role in regional politics.”

The mufti rejected labeling as refugees the more than 5,000 Syrians who have fled to border areas in north Lebanon as a result of the violence in Syria. Qabbani also rejected a proposal to establish camps for Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

“Those [Syrians] are not refugees. They are brothers who were forced to leave their houses in tense areas fearing for themselves and for their wives and sons to safer areas inside our Lebanese border. Therefore, we must treat them as our relatives and guests, not as strangers,” Qabbani said. “We must pay attention to their social, health and humanitarian conditions.”