“There is a great reluctance to excommunicate someone by extension. … It would be like convicting someone in absentia,” said Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, the spokesman for themosque, in Falls Church Va. IF (if?) crimes have been committed, the Nigerian government should punish the individuals, he added.

On May 7, Abdul Malik led a group of Muslim advocates at a press conference at the National Press Club, where they denied that Islamic strictures are shaping Boko Haram’s years-long campaign of killing and kidnapping Christians.

“Islam is not the problem,” said Ahmed Bedier, a Florida-based Islamic advocate. “We’re tired of people coming on television and asking where does this ideology come from,” Bedier said. “Well, this ideology comes from nowhere,”. The Islamic leaders’ defensiveness was slammed by Rahil Raza, a Canadian Muslim who is working to modernize the faith.

Established Islamic leaders “have to look long and hard at the Sharia [Islamic law] that Boko Haram is using … [because] it is an ideology of violence,” said Raza, who is president of Muslims Facing Tomorrow , a Canadian Islamic group. ”We’ve got to stop living in the past, stop living in the 7th and 8th centuries and start living in the 21st century,” she said.

At his May 7 event, Abdul-Malik urged Boko Haram to change its view of Islam, even as he declined to challenge its religious claims. “Groups like Boko Haram desire to take us back to a medieval … world where kidnapping of women and girls and enslavement and rape are acceptable,” he said.

“The world has changed … [and] in particular we are saying as modern day Muslims that we now reject all of these acts and that they are contrary to our faith,” he said.

Qur’an 9:29

“Fight those who do not believe in Allah or the Last Day, who do not forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, or acknowledge the Religion of Truth (Islam), (even if they are) People of the Book (Christians and Jews), until they pay the Jizyah tribute tax in submission. Pay the tax in acknowledgment of our superiority and their state of subjection.”

Qur’an 5:35

As for the disbelievers [previously defined as Christians], if they had everything on earth, two times over, to give as ransom for the penalty of the Day of Doom, it would never be accepted from them. Theirs will be a painful torment. They will desire to get out of the fire, but they shall not be released from it. They shall have an everlasting torture.”

Qur’an 5:73

“They are surely disbelievers who blaspheme and say: ‘God is one of three in the Trinity for there is no Ilah (God) except One, Allah. If they desist not from saying this (blasphemy), verily a grievous penalty will befall them – the disbelievers will suffer a painful doom.”

Qur’an 5:77

“Say (Muhammad): ‘People of the Book, do not overstep the bounds in your religion, or follow the people who erred and led many astray. Cursed are the unbelievers among the Children of Israel by David and Jesus…. They do vile things, allying themselves with the infidels so that Allah’s indignation is upon them and in torment they will suffer for all eternity.”

Qur’an 3:56

“As for those disbelieving infidels, I will punish them with a terrible agony in this world and the next. They have no one to help or save them.”