Interfaith prayers held across Australia for hostages

Prayer services were held in mosques, churches and synagogues across Australia Monday night, hours after a gunman brandishing a black flag bearing an Islamic creed broke into a downtown Sydney cafe, taking multiple customers hostage, in an apparent politically or religiously motivated attack.

Representatives of all three monotheistic religions attended an interfaith service at one of Australia’s largest mosques, at Lakemba in Western Sydney, amid growing fears of a potential backlash against the Muslim community in the wake of the attack.

Muslim Australian leaders hurried to condemn the alleged gunman and appealed for calm, as police continued to investigate the identity of the assailant and his suspected links to militant Islam. He was later identified as Man Haron Monis, an expatriate Iranian cleric.

“Such actions are denounced in part and in whole in Islam,” said Ibrahim Abu Mohammed, grand mufti of Australia, in a press release Monday, and called for “a peaceful resolve to this calamity.”

“We along with wider Australian society await the results of the investigation about the identity of the perpetrators and their underlying motivations behind this criminal act,” he said.

At an interfaith service in Canberra, the city’s sole rabbi, Alon Meltzer, called on Australians to remain united in the face of intolerance.

“As the shocking news continues to come out of Sydney relating to the hostage situation, faith-based communities around the country have been asked to come together,” he told The Canberra Times.

“Pray for those who are involved in this terrible situation and stand up to fundamentalism and extremism,” he said.

Over 40 Muslims organizations across Australia signed a joint statement that called for nationwide solidarity, while also demanding that Australian media take responsibility for balanced reporting as the crisis unfolds.

“We reject any attempt to take the innocent life of any human being or to instill fear and terror into their hearts,” the statement read.

“Any such despicable act only serves to play into the agendas of those who seek to destroy the goodwill of the people of Australia and to further damage and ridicule the religion of Islam and Australian Muslims throughout this country,” it added.

The black flag shown by captives at a window in Sydney’s Lindt cafe was similar to the flag used by jihadist groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. It bore an inscription known as the Shahada, or profession of faith in Islam, which reads: “There is no god but the God; Muhammad is the messenger of the God.”

The statement released by the Australian Muslim organizations said that the inscription on the flag “is not representative of a political statement, but reaffirms a testimony of faith that has been misappropriated by misguided individuals that represent no-one but themselves.”

Some 60 Australians are believed to be fighting in Syria with the Islamic State and other jihadist groups, and Australian officials fear that battle-hardened militants may return to perpetrate terror attacks on Australian soil.

Australia’s Muslim population rose from 281,600 in 2001 to 476,300 by 2011, two-thirds of whom were born overseas, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

In September, Numan Haider, 18, stabbed two police officers outside a Melbourne police station before being shot dead. He was carrying an Islamic flag with him at the time of the attack.