Australian cleric refuses to quit over 'meat' sermon

Sheikh Taj El-Din leaves midday prayers at Sydney's Lakemba Mosque on Friday. Picture / Reuters

CANBERRA - Australia's top Muslim cleric, suspended from preaching after describing women who do not dress modestly as "uncovered meat", has rejected calls to resign, saying he would not go until the White House was cleaned out.

Sheikh Taj El-Din Hamid Hilaly, the mufti of Australia's biggest mosque in Sydney, angered community and political leaders and divided Australia's 280,000 Muslims over the comments, made in a Ramadan sermon a month ago but only reported this week.

Hilaly attended prayers at the Lakemba Mosque on Friday but did not give the sermon. Surrounded by dozens of supporters as he left the mosque, Hilaly said he would not resign.

"After we clean the world of the White House first," he said when asked directly by reporters when he would stand down.

The Australian Lebanese Muslim Association, which owns Hilaly's Lakemba Mosque, has suspended him from preaching for three months, but other Muslim leaders and politicians have demanded he be sacked.

Prime Minister John Howard said on Friday stronger action needed to be taken against Hilaly, who once described Howard, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair as the axis of evil.

"I believe that unless this matter is satisfactorily resolved by the Islamic community, there is a real worry that some lasting damage will be done," Howard told Australian radio.

"We do not want the Islamic community isolated. We do not want the Islamic community to be an object of criticism and derision."

Howard said Hilaly, who courted controversy two years ago by glorifying martyrdom and calling the September 11 attacks the work of God, was now an Australian citizen and could not be deported.

Hilaly has apologized for his comments, which he said had been misinterpreted and taken out of context. In a Ramadan sermon last month, Hilaly said sexual assaults might not happen if women wore a hijab and stayed at home.

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem," Hilaly said, according to a newspaper translation.

His sermon has again strained relations between the conservative government and sections of Australia's Muslim community, which makes up 1.5 per cent of the 20 million population.

Tom Zreika, president of the Australian Lebanese Muslim Association, said the suspension was designed to give Hilaly time to consider his future and the impact of his comments, and to recover from an illness.

"We felt the three months away would give him time to mull over what's been said," Zreika told Australian television.

But Muslim leaders in the southern state of Victoria issued an open letter condemning Hilaly's comments and called for him to be sacked. Australia's United Muslim Women Association also condemned his comments.

- REUTERS