Hundreds of Scottish Muslims have lead prayers in different mosques for more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls who were abducted by militant group Boko Haram last month, reiterating that the group’s move are against the teachings of Islam.
"I welcome this show of solidarity with the families of schoolgirls abducted in Nigeria,” Humza Yousaf, Glasgow MSP and the Scottish Government's external affairs minister, told Scotland Herald on Saturday, May 17.
Prayers were led on Friday after Yousaf suggesting holding a day of prayers for the missing girls.
Given guidance from the Muslim Council of Scotland, mosque elders across the country were given a note to pray for the girls and assure that Boko Haram’s actions were contradicting with the teachings of Islam.
"When I spoke to the Muslim Council of Scotland they were keen to help in any way that they could," he said.
Some 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped by the Boko Haram militants while being at school in the Chibok area of Borno state last April 14.
The abduction was widely condemned by world leaders and Islamic organizations.
Boko Haram's leader has threatened to sell them into slavery and in a video released on Monday offered to release the girls in exchange for the freedom of jailed Boko Haram members.
Using Islamic teachings as justification for threatening to sell the girls into slavery, Shekau threats sparked Muslim anger worldwide, asserting that Islam was innocent for all such crimes.
"The Muslim community is not just shocked and sickened by this grotesque act but also angry that extremists have once again abused the name of Islam,” Yousaf said.
Last week, Islamic scholars and human rights officials of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the world's largest Muslim body representing 57 countries, denounced the kidnapping as "a gross misinterpretation of Islam".
Earlier, Al-Azhar, the prestigious Cairo-based seat of Sunni learning, also said that the kidnapping "has nothing to do with the tolerant and noble teachings of Islam."
Boko Haram, a Hausa term meaning “Western education is sinful”, is loosely modeled on Afghanistan's Taliban.
The militant group says it is fighting enemies who have wronged its members through violence, arrests or economic neglect and corruption.
It has been blamed for a campaign of shootings and bombings against security forces and authorities in the north since 2009.
But recently, the sect has carried out attacks against Christians and Muslims alike.
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