Fethullah Gülen expressed his sorrow about the loss of more than 350 lives in the school hostage crisis in Beslan, North Ossetia, and emphasized that the use of terror has no place in the struggle for liberation.

Gülen reminded that a Muslim cannot be a terrorist, nor could a terrorist be a Muslim. “Terrorist activities are the biggest blow to peace and welfare. Terrorist activities can never be approved, regardless of their reason or their target.”

In a written statement Gülen indicates that the major terrorist activities of the past few years not only set back the prospects for peace in the locations where they took place, but in the world as a whole. “First of all terror is a threat against the most sacred and global of values, human life. In the same way that it murders human life, terror abolishes social trust. Terror is the most degenerative human activity in the world and no religion, no concept, and no consideration could be degenerated to such an extent to approve it.”

Gülen emphasized that human life was very important in the eyes of God. The religion that God sent holds the protection of human life among its highest ideals, he explained.

Gülen offered his condolences to those who lost their relatives in the hostage crisis in North Ossetia, and also to the officials of Russian Federation and the entire Russian public. He said he hopes that the injured recover quickly.

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