Shaykh Dr Muhammad Umar Al-Qadri
The gardai should be recruiting more Muslims to promote integration and tackle the risk of radicalisation.
Shaykh Dr Umar al-Qadri spoke to the Herald saying:
“I was reading there is not a single garda that speaks Arabic in the force which is very worrying.”
Dr al-Qadri, who is the chairman of the Irish Muslim Peace and Integration Council, said that the Government needs to take measures to prevent young Muslims becoming radicalised by extremists.
The Muslim community in Ireland remains very peaceful and has grown from 30,000 in 2004 to around 60,000 to 70,000 according to Dr al-Qadri.
Speaking on Radio One he said that the Government needs to support initiatives promoting integration.
“I think it is their moral obligation. This is their duty to promote integration and for that they first of all need to identify dialogue partners and the Government is very bad at that,” he said.
The Imam, who said his own children do not attend Islamic school, but go to community national school, does not believed children of different faiths should be separated from each other.
More initiatives are needed to counter Islamaphobia, said Dr al-Qadri.