THE Islamic Council of Jamaica (ICOJ) has dismissed the likelihood of a terrorist attack in Jamaica from their religious followers.

Acting president of the council, Sheikh Musa Tijani, said in an interview last week that the unity within the organisation here limits the feasibility of an act of terrorism.

“No. There is no threat in terms of the individual home through the Islamic way of life, no we don’t have that in Jamaica,” Tijani boldly stated.

“The reason why, is that in Jamaica we have something that we don’t have in the Caribbean. What is that? It’s the unity of the Muslim leaders in Jamaica,” he explained, highlighting that in other Caribbean countries the mosques are divided — without any interaction with each other.

“If you go to some small island they have two mosques and that is two (separated) groups, they have three mosques, three (separated) groups; in Trinidad they have 100 mosques so they have so many organisations; [but] in Jamaica all the branches they work together and that is what the Islamic Council is,” he continued.

The emergence of the Islamic State (ISIS) and Boko Haram, two terrorist groups which identify themselves with the Islamic religion, has heightened the world’s awareness of the Muslim community.

According to Tijani, though the ICOJ “condemns the horrific crimes in the strongest possible terms”, the evils happening are beneficial to the organisation here as they are providing an avenue to inform the public about the religion.

“Islam in Jamaica is growing fast and a lot of things that happen in the world come to us here as a positive because whenever something happens in the world you find the people from the public they want to know more about Islam so in that case to be frank with you almost every day we have somebody become a Muslim,” he noted.

The religion, he said, has a little over 6,000 followers and 13 mosques in Jamaica now and continues to grow.

The recent attacks in Paris have had country leaders scurrying to prepare for acts of terrorism. The attacks claimed the lives of 129 people and injured another 352 in Paris and have claimed significantly more worldwide.

“The one that happened in Paris, that one hurt every single one of us. We condemn it and we mention to the world we send condolence to all those victims and their families,” he said.

The religious head argued that the acts of terror are “mis-Islam” and go against the religion’s belief.

“They are not Muslim, they don’t know Quran,” he said firmly, referring to the terrorists.

“All that happen is a plan against the Islam. We condemn it; we say the Islamic Council is an umbrella organisation for all in the Muslim community in Jamaica so we are islandwide and we condemn that action there. We feel it, because ISIS everybody will say that they are Muslim, we say they are not; Boko Haram, they are not Muslim because that action is opposite of what Islam taught you,” he added.

He said the Qur’an — their holy book — strongly speaks against murder and suicide and questioned the thought of young people going to be a part of the murderous movement.

“It’s hard to see young people thinking of joining ISIS. They have the people who are teaching them wrong Islam, we don’t deny that because if you are not getting the wrong teaching how can you, young person, 21 years old, male or female put a bomb on yourself and walk and blow himself,” he questioned.

With the increase in threats and attacks, world leaders have also condemned the groups and have committed to eliminating the terrorists. The ICOJ in a press release has announced its support of this move to apprehend the perpetrators and stated that “they (the terrorists) must be brought to justice”.

Last week the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) announced its preparation to prevent acts of terrorism in the country.