Oxford scholar out to erase negative image of Islam

KUALA LUMPUR: The fatwa (edict) against the killing of civilians which arose from a treatise written by Datuk Dr Afifi al-Akiti, the first Malaysian to hold a permanent teaching post at the prestigious University of Oxford, has placed him on par with the world's leading Islamic scholars.Afifi, who is a Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and lecturer at the Faculty of Theology, wrote the treatise just days after the London bombings on July 7,2005.

Fifty-two people were killed and more than 700 injured in three suicide bombings that occurred on the London Underground.