(AhlulBayt News Agency) - A high-level delegation from the South Africa Muslim Judicial Council (MJC) visited the Imam Hussain Mosque in Verulam on Monday night to call for calm after last week's fatal attack there, the MJC said on Tuesday.

"The leaders expressed the absolute necessity for tolerance and peace in all our communities, and that incitement to violence, hate and intolerance, due to our different ideological and religious viewpoints, [is] unacceptable in Islam," said MJC secretary general Shaykh Isgaak Taliep.

The majority of Muslims in South Africa are Sunni but there is a growing Shia community.

MJC president Shaykh Irafaan Abrahams, and his deputy, Maulana Abdul Khaliq Ebrahim Allie, led the delegation and condemned the attack "in the strongest possible terms".

The Hawks are investigating the attack.

Meanwhile the Council of Muslim Theologians (Jamiatul Ulama South Africa) distanced itself from a discriminatory online list on how to identify a Shia Muslim, after the link was circulated on WhatsApp and other social media. 

"That is not our website," said Ebrahim Bham, Jamiatul Ulama South Africa secretary general, on Monday."There is another organisation claiming the same name."He forwarded a statement from the United Ulama Council of SA (UUCSA), condemning last week's attack.

In it, UUCSA general secretary Yusuf Patel states: "We condemn these unjustified acts of violence, which foster nothing but tension, mistrust and insecurity within communities."

Last Thursday, Abbas Essop was stabbed to death, and Imam Ali Nchiyane, was stabbed three times, but survived. 

The attackers also burnt the Qur'an and Islamic literature when the mosque was set alight on Thursday.

On Sunday, a bomb-like device was found in the same mosque under the Moulana's seat.

Source: Abna24