Islamic preacher- We will conquer Rome

KATH.NET - Katholischer Nachrichtendienst

A 26-year-old regularly preaches in a mosque in Solingen - Cologne City Superintendent: His theses are an "impertinence", Representatives of Muslim organizations distance themselves

Anti-Christian expressions of a radical Islamic preacher concern the Protestant Church Association of Cologne City. The 26-year-old Austrian Mohamed Mahmoud was released in September 2011 after a four-year prison sentence in a Vienna prison on charges of forming and promoting a terrorist organization . After a short stay in Berlin, he moved at the end of 2011 to Solingen, near Düsseldorf. Currently he is living in Erbach in Hessen(Odenwald).

Several television stations reported on his challenge to Christianity: "We will conquer Rome! And then Peter's Square, or whatever it's called, yes, that is [...]to be the site of the conversion and the area to implement Allah's laws in order to implement Allah's punishment, so that enough people will be able to witness the events!" The City superintendent of the Protestant Church Association of Cologne and region, Rolf Domning, called the remarks of the preacher's hate "impudence."

The catchment area of Mahmoud, who preaches regularly at a mosque in Solingen, includes Cologne. This was in cooperation with reform-minded Muslims as Domning also said that representatives of Muslim organizations distanced themselves "very clearly" from the public statements of the Islamist preacher.

The Association is also in dialogue with representatives of an enlightened and reformist Islam, such as the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious (Cologne). Domning: "Together we make with our ecclesiastical communities locally and at the level of social welfare and educational institutions a good inter-religious neighborhood, which is characterized by mutual respect, recognition and a common commitment to a mutual awareness of cultures and religions, on the basis of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany. "This work is also carried out by the Cologne Council of Religions. It was founded in 2006 by some 20 religious communities and is committed to the promotion of interreligious dialogue.