Australia's top Muslim cleric to be replaced

The Straits Times, March 27, 2007


CONTROVERSIAL: Sheikh Taj Aldin Al-Hilali referred to women without headscarves as 'uncovered meat'.










OUTRAGED: Mr Howard wants imams to act faster.











AUSTRALIA'S top Muslim cleric will be replaced, but not for three more months, religious leaders have decided.

He had triggered a furore last year when he referred to women without headscarves as 'uncovered meat'.

The decision by about 60 members of the Australian National Imams Council to keep Sheikh Taj Aldin Al-Hilali as the country's mufti for at least three months could harm the image of Muslims nationwide, Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday.

'The remarks he made about women...his reference to convicts, his reference to who is more entitled to call themselves Australians - all of those things were totally out of touch with mainstream Australian sentiment,' Mr Howard told Sky News.

'And all I can say is the failure of the community to do something more decisive about this is damaging the image of Islamic Australians as part of our community.'

Faced with calls to get out of the country, the Egyptian-born cleric had mocked the convict ancestry of many white Australians and said Muslims had more right to live in the country.

A spokesman for the imams said after the council meeting on Sunday that the cleric would likely be replaced at the end of the three-month period, during which a committee to choose a new mufti would be established.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE