Terrorism in name of Islam doesn’t represent Islam: Zarif

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has criticized US President Donald Trump for hastily “insulting” Islam following terrorist attacks in Spain, saying that acts of terror committed in the name of Islam do not represent the holy religion.

“Quick to insult Islam but hesitant to condemn racist terror at home. Terror in name of race or religion is plain terror & represents neither,” Zarif said in a message posted on his Twitter account on Saturday.

Last week, violent clashes erupted between far-right demonstrators and counter-protesters in the US city of Charlottesville. A white supremacist drove a car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a woman.

Trump failed to condemn the far-right agitators for the violence at first, remaining silent for 48 hours before he finally came up with a statement of condemnation that surprisingly denounced all sides.

In later remarks, the US president also seemed to compare the far-right protesters with the people who had been rallying to denounce white supremacy and fascism.

In contrast, soon after Daesh claimed deadly terrorist attacks in Spain on Thursday, Trump took to Twitter to make anti-Islam remarks.

He urged strong measures to combat what he called “radical Islamic terrorism” and advised people to study a debunked myth about a US general who executed suspected Muslim militants in the Philippines in the early 1900s by shooting them with bullets dipped in pigs’ blood.

“Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!” he tweeted.

The offensive remark drew strong criticism, including by former US officials.

Trump has in the past been criticized for his linking of terrorists who claim to be “Muslims” to the religion of Islam.

The radical groups are in fact followers of an extremist pseudo-ideology known as “Wahhabism,” which is preached by government-sanctioned clerics inside Saudi Arabia.