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Why Muslims Should Remember the Holocaust
(Washington Post) Mohammad Al-Issa - The lessons of the Holocaust are universal and Muslims around the world have a responsibility to learn them, heed the warnings and join the international commitment to ensure "never again." One year ago, as International Holocaust Remembrance Day approached, I wrote to Sara Bloomfield, director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, on behalf of the Muslim World League, an organization that represents more than 1 billion Muslims. In that letter, I expressed "our great sympathy with the victims of the Holocaust, an incident that shook humanity to the core, and created an event whose horrors could not be denied or underrated by any fair-minded or peace-loving person." "Who in his right mind would accept, sympathize, or even diminish the extent of this brutal crime? We consider any denial of the Holocaust or minimizing of its effect a crime to distort history and an insult to the dignity of those innocent souls who have perished." I received a flood of messages from Muslim religious scholars endorsing the view I had expressed. Not a single reputable scholar has stood up to oppose this view. I urge all Muslims to learn the history of the Holocaust, to visit memorials and museums to this horrific event, and to teach its lessons to their children. We share a responsibility to confront those who would carry Adolf Hitler's torch today, and to join hands with people of goodwill of all nations and faiths to prevent genocide wherever it threatens innocent lives. The writer is secretary-general of the Muslim World League and president of the International Organization of Muslim Scholars, based in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.