I never thought I’d be an ordained imam, I was studying the faith for myself.  I come from a pretty diverse background. My older brother and two sisters are Catholic and my mother’s family are Jewish, so I’ve mixed my traditions well."
"Politics does play a role, but I say the problem isn’t that. It’s the ideology. There’s a problem with the ideology of these people [ISIS]...Every religion has people who align themselves, even though they have nothing to do with faith. ...You can’t rationalize delusional thoughts. This is brainwashing just like what happened with the Nazis...there’s no honour in killing, there’s no nobility in killing..." 
"They’ve made it so difficult for us and have nothing to do with our faith. I’d go so far as to say they don’t believe in God. Someone who would rape, murder and destroy can’t have faith."
"That will lead a person to believe in a God that’s angry or hateful and the people who believe these things will translate it into violence."

"I’ve been speaking out about this sect for over 10 years. People said let them believe what they want, but when your belief translates into transgressions against others, that’s a problem."

"[Who benefits from those atrocities?] ...Not Islam. The biggest hurt is to Islam. We lose the most amount of people to terrorists...the scholars of Islam call this sect a cancer in the heart of the Islamic world. We not only have to deal with them, but have to answer for them."

Ashley Kulp/METROLAND Mohamad Jebara, imam and Muslim scholar with Ottawa’s Cordova Spiritual Education Center, speaks during a Jan. 28 presentation at St. James Anglican Church in Carleton Place.

"Islamic scholars have been very strong and very vocal that suicide bombings and attacks are against Islam. Over two million Islamic scholars signed a petition about this terrorism against Islam, but you didn’t hear anything about it on the news or CNN because (the media) won’t respond to it because they don’t want to hear it."

"Right now, they (mosques and churches) operate in much the same way. There is the holy area at the front and a congregation and the structure is multi-cultural. The dome of the mosque is from the Orthodox-Christians. There was no dome in early Islam. And the tops of churches in North Africa are no different than the bell towers you have in churches here. We also take the pulpit from the Christians." 

"[Quran teaches you to] replace wickedness, oppression, tyranny and evil and replace it with kindness, mercy, love and compassion. When people throw hate to you, don’t replace it with hate, replace it with love."

"If you can do so, the Lord will transform the hurt of those who did to you. ...If you are able to do that, you’re the most successful of all people.

“The power of love and the power of compassion is what is victorious in the end. No matter how long the darkness lasts, the light of compassion will shine through."

Mohamad Jebara, chief Imam, Cordova Spiritual Education Centre, Ottawa

Here, then, is a man who is uniquely placed and gifted by circumstances, coming from a truly ecumenical background -- as the child of a Jewish woman he is regarded as being Jewish in the Judaic tradition; as someone whose siblings have chosen the path of Roman Catholicism to satisfy their need for spirituality; as a man who has himself selected the option to study Islam and follow its teachings, presenting himself as a scholar and a cleric -- his diverse background and intimate family relations place him uniquely in the position of a peacemaker.

He acknowledges in part that Islam -- a religion brought to Bedouin tribes of the 6th Century Middle East by a man whose vision imagined that the religion he would introduce to the world would be recognized as the ultimate theism and take precedence over the two preceding religions from which the Prophet Mohammad selected those portions of its traditions and values that appealed to him -- owes much to its predecessors, Judaism and Christianity. But he glosses over the history well known to Muslim scholars that Islam was spread by the scimitar, not by its serene vision of brotherhood and peace.

A Mughal painting representation of Muhammad's slaughter of the Banu Qurayzah, a Jewish tribe

It is that very history, one of battles and conquests and assassinations and sectarian divisions that those whose brand of Islam the good Imam deplores, that he also overlooks as being the inspiration of Islamist Salafists like Islamic State. And nor does he address the vast, unending rage against Jews in the Koran. Nor acknowledge that Mohammad in his rage against the Jews of Medina, slaughtered them. In the tradition of Islam, crucifixion and beheading form part of its history as does the call to the faithful to engage in jihad on behalf of Islam and its desired conquest of other religions, leading to the caliphate that ISIS seeks to renew.

The futile signing of a fatwa by the imams to which Mohamad Jebara refers does not appear, for all the religious authority that they represent, to be changing very many attitudes among Muslims themselves, so many of whom support the ascendance of Islam throughout the countries of the West that they migrate to. How can peace be established when an medieval Eastern religion that is introduced to countries of the West with their established heritage, culture and religion is being challenged by Muslims refusing to regard indigenous values in equality with their own?

Islam insists that fear be inspired in the hearts of non-believers to entice, encourage and bully non-believers to accept and submit to Islam. This is not a tranquil, serene religion of human dignity fully respecting the rights of others to make their choices of free will, not coercion. And it is that Islam which the Islamic State and al-Qaeda exemplify, so Imam Jebara's pleas for non-Muslims to understand that ISIS does not represent Islam, is rather precious under the circumstances.

The media haven't 'recognized' in bold capital print the condemnation of ISIS's atrocities to his satisfaction, because they've been busy publishing the ongoing and myriad accounts of inhumane slaughter, rape, ethnic cleansing and religious oppression that those proponents of Islam are exhibiting to the world, as Muslims obeying the edicts of their religion demanding that as faithful Muslims they proselytize and use any means toward that end that work.

For it is only by expanding the vast numbers of the existing ummah of the Muslim diaspora that the final goal can be achieved, of one religion above all others viewed as sacred and implacably in command. Imam Jebara may be preaching a religion of love, but what the world sees write in large letters is that religion celebrating itself not in peace but in war, all over the geography where it first surfaced before inexorably spreading worldwide. That Muslims themselves happen to be the primary victims speaks volumes about the respect for human life in Islam, despite that oft-repeated knock-off of Judaism's appeal that one life lost is a tragedy that afflicts all of humanity.

Imam Jebara is so confident of his brand of Islam, he speaks of ISIS and other terrorist Islamists with scorn as not reflecting the Islam he represents. Does he speak too of the vast, ancient country of Persia and its pure Islamist agenda of nuclear bombs and threats against the Jewish State of Israel, where the Prophet Mohammad took inspiration for his religion to which all must surrender, according to his plan? Does the good Imam, speak too of the violent sectarian divide between Sunni and Shia?