THE grotesque savagery exhibited by religious fanatics masquerading as ‘devout’ Muslims in Iraq and Syria has descended to unspeakable barbarity with the horrendous video beheadings of innocent foreigners.

Nothing can excuse the brutal executions that contravene the Holy Qur’an and defies all civilized norms.

British Muslims must say loudly that these militant Sunni fundamentalists are contravening Islam’s scripture.

They have betrayed the uplifting precepts of Islam with their indiscriminate slaughter of the Yazidi minority; the deliberate eviction of Christians and the persecution of the Shi’ah sect.

None of these human rights infringements is religiously justifiable.

However, there is no denying that the emergence of ISIL and its mutation in Iraq and Syria as a bloodthirsty medieval caliphate can be traced directly to Tony Blair and George Bush’s illegal 2003 invasion.

Blair’s pliant British foreign policy opened a Pandora’s box and triggered this monstrous inhumanity in the Fertile Crescent today.

The unusually silent multi-millionaire Blair has much to answer for selling the UK to the US and for unleashing the catastrophe presently engulfing Iraq and the wider world.

While this is gargantuan tragedy for the region’s people, this cannot serve as a green light for young disaffected British Muslims to embark on military adventurism abroad.

Since most of them are not stakeholders in mainstream society, they have been indoctrinated by a virulent Wahhabi-Salafi ideology that it is their Muslim duty to engage in so-called jihad.

But the Holy Qur’an is clear that defensive belligerency can only take place when there is religious oppression or people have been evicted from their homes.

British Muslims are not subject to these tribulations.

So, it is incumbent upon integrated Muslims to resist the toxic theology espoused by religious lunatics. Apart from the fact that Islam’s transcendent text does not legitimize the death penalty without impartial legal proceedings (6:151), Muslims need to be reminded that the Qur’an endorses freedom of faith (2:256; 10:99; 19:29,109:6); it prohibits the demolition of houses of worship (22:40); and it does not permit the wanton enslavement or forced marriage of non-Muslim women (4:19).

Sadly, none of the main British Muslim organisations – in contrast to their recent anti-Zionist protests against Israel and legitimate support for the dispossessed people of Gaza – has railed against the non-Qur’anic horrors perpetrated by the Islamic State nor have they expressed effective opposition to its subjugation of women, the destruction of churches and mosques, the persecution of religious minorities, its policy of forced conversions or its gross intra-Muslim intolerance.

It is this poisonous ideology that is the greatest peril for Britain as uninformed Muslims are influenced by extremist misinterpretations of Islam.

It is in the UK’s national interests to support all thinking Muslims combating this lethal theological virus.

Unless this is done, more impressionable young men will be attracted to this toxic brand of religious bigotry and ideological fascism, with dire consequences for everyone.