Tell It To The Islamists

Excuse me if I'm just a bit skeptical about this call for "peace" from Muslim "scholars" supposedly reaching out to Christians.

How about laying down your arms, acknowledging Israel, and stop killing people in the name of your religion?

Then maybe we can have some dialogue.

Unprecedented Muslim call for peace with Christians

More than 130 Muslim scholars from around the globe called on Thursday for peace and understanding between Islam and Christianity, saying "the very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake".

In an unprecedented letter to Pope Benedict and other Christian leaders, 138 Muslim scholars said finding common ground between the world's biggest faiths was not simply a matter for polite dialogue between religious leaders.

"If Muslims and Christians are not at peace, the world cannot be at peace. With the terrible weaponry of the modern world; with Muslims and Christians intertwined everywhere as never before, no side can unilaterally win a conflict between more than half of the world's inhabitants," the scholars wrote.

"Our common future is at stake. The very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake," they wrote, adding that Islam and Christianity already agreed that love of God and neighbour were the two most important commandments of their faiths.

Relations between Muslims and Christians have been strained as al Qaeda has struck around the world and as the United States and other Western countries intervened in Iraq and Afghanistan.

More like relations between Muslims and the civilized world have been strained,

Not just Christians. How about letting Israelis live in peace? Doesn't seem to be any mention of that.

Aref Ali Nayed, one of the signatories and a senior adviser to the Cambridge Interfaith Programme at Cambridge University in Britain, said the signatories represented the "99.9 percent of Muslims" who follow mainstream schools and oppose extremism.

"In Islam we have had a problem for some time now where the mainstream voices are drowned out by a minority that choose violence," he said.

Nayed said organisers of the letter had set up an ad hoc network among Muslim leaders that could lead to more cooperation in future.

"These people don't take their signatures lightly," he said. "We are trying to institutionalise this so we don't lose it."

The overture to Christians could be followed by similar letters addressed to Jews or secularists, he added.

We'll believe that when we see it.

Until then, control your own end and let us live in peace. We're not the ones blowing people up and chopping off heads.