CAIRO, July 10, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Britain’s top Muslim scholars are drafting a fatwa stripping those behind the grisly London blasts, if proved Muslims, from the right to call themselves Muslims, a leading British newspaper said Sunday, July 10.

Signed by dozens of prominent Muslim bodies, mosques, Islamic scholars and community groups, the religious edict will brand the attacks as a breach of the most basic tenets of Islam, reported The Independent.

"If these bombers are found to be Muslims, we will make it clear we utterly dissociate ourselves from them - even if they claim to be Muslims or are acting under the mantle of the Islamic faith. We reject that utterly," said the official spokesman of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB).

Two different groups purporting to be Al-Qaeda affiliated claimed responsibility for the bloody blasts which killed at least 49 people and wounded 700 others.

The Independent said police and intelligence agents are investigating the theory that a gang of white "mercenary terrorists" was hired by Al-Qaeda to carry out the attacks.

Commander Brian Paddick of the London Metropolitan Police told reporters Sunday no arrests have been made yet and that they were not focusing on any specific suspects.

The fatwa will also make clear that Muslims have a moral duty to help the police catch the perpetrators.

The move follows a decision taken Friday, July 8, at an emergency meeting attended by about 100 of the country's most prominent Muslim leaders, held in private at East London Mosque, said the daily.

Imams across Britain were united in condemning the attacks in their weekly Friday sermons, encouraging Muslims to offer all possible assistance to the victims and authorities.

"We're not talking about Muslims here. We're talking about a bunch of nutters," said Qureshi.

Senior minority leaders believe they must undermine the religious basis of the terrorists' actions, said the British daily.

"Those behind this atrocity aren't just enemies of humanity but enemies of Islam and Muslims", said Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary general of the MCB, the main representative Muslim body in Britain.

"The people at the receiving end of this, both as some of the victims of the bombing and victims of the backlash, are Muslims," he stressed.

Murad Qureshi, the only Muslim member of the Greater London Assembly and a former Labour councilor in Westminster, backs such a fatwa.

"It is about time we put clear distance between ourselves and so-called Muslim leaders like Osama bin Laden, who has been able to dictate the whole agenda with his video nasties," he said.

"We're not talking about Muslims here. We're talking about a bunch of nutters. The time has come to debunk the idea they are sanctioned by Islam."

The London blasts have drawn immediate condemnation from prominent scholars across the Muslim world, who said that such “black actions” run in the face of Islam which strictly forbids killing civilians.

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, said there should be a "dividing line" between terrorists and Muslims.

"There's not a dividing line between Muslims and Londoners. The dividing line is between those who commit these acts and those who don't," he said.

While saying that the perpetrators acted "in the name of Islam," Prime Minister Tony Blair maintained that "the vast and overwhelming majority of Muslims here and abroad are decent and law abiding people who abhor terrorism every bit as much as we do."

He also admitted there can be no security solution to terrorist attacks, urging the world to address the underlying causes of terrorism.

David Clark, a former Labour government adviser, wrote in the Guardian Saturday there can be no hope of defeating terrorism until the world community is ready to take “legitimate Arab grievances” seriously.