Dar Al-Ifta strongly denounced US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's "extremist and racist" statements that called to ban the entry of Muslims to the US. In a written statement Monday afternoon, the Trump campaign said the presidential hopeful wanted a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the US until our country representatives figures out what's going on". Trump's statements came in the wake of the California shootings, in which 14 people were killed. The alleged perpetrators of the attack were a Muslim couple who are believed to have been radicalised. "There are almost 8 million Muslims in the US," Dar Al-Ifta's statement read. "This hostile stance taken towards the Islamic religion and Muslims will only increase tension within American society". The statement further questioned the logic behind "punishing all Muslims" for the actions of a group of extremists and said that terrorism cannot be identified or correlated with a particular religion or country. Dar Al-Ifta called for the necessity of implementing laws that penalise hate speech and also called on the US society to reject "extremist calls".
