A Pakistani “Islamic scholar” visiting Philadelphia for a Muslim Eid al-Fitr event took the opportunity to spew hate and antisemitism: Muslim scholar’s remarks criticized. (Hat tip: Morgan.)

“Muslims are the peaceful nation,” Muhammad Al-Qasami told the press conference. “The Jews are the biggest terrorists of the world.”

The six local Muslim clergy, or imams, who had joined Al-Qasami on the dais did not immediately object to his remarks.

“It took us by surprise,” Muhaiman said as he left the conference room. Muslims “have more in common [with Jews] than we have differences,” he said, adding: “We don’t agree” with Al-Qasami’s remarks.

Al-Qasami, who has spent the last month visiting with the Islamic community in the Philadelphia area, also expressed frustration with media coverage of the U.S. military presence in Iraq and of the Middle East conflict.

He said much of the American news media is controlled “by a third power,” and urged journalists to report “how much we are bleeding in Palestine.” He left the news conference before it ended.

Reached by phone at a mosque in Upper Darby where he is staying, Al-Qasami said later that his remarks about terrorism were directed only at the political leadership of Israel.

“All the Jewish community is our cousins,” said Al-Qasami, whose home is Manchester, England. “Only those who don’t want peace in the world are the terrorists.”

He said he had spent most of Ramadan in the Philadelphia area and had speaking engagements in Florida and Ohio before he returned to England.

Iftekhar Hussain, general secretary of the Tri-State Muslim-American Society, said yesterday that he had not heard of Al-Qasami but that his remarks at the news conference “sounded incendiary.”

“The impression it will leave is most Muslims think that [about Jews] but don’t say it,” he said.

Notice that Iftekhar Hussain does not actually deny that most Muslims think this way; he just decries the impression it makes on non-Muslims.