"Australian Muslims are one of the most integrated communities in the West," said Seyit. (Reuters)

SYDNEY, August 22, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Young Australian Muslims urged Monday, August 22, for the adoption of "Modernizing Muslims Six Point Plan" presented during Youth Forum, in a bid for imams to be trained and accredited to ensure their teachings fit a modern, multi-cultural Australia.

"We do not believe there is a threat within the Islamic community of terrorism in Australia," Kuranda Seyit, head of the moderate youth Forum on Australia's Islamic Relations, told Reuters Monday, August 22.

The six-point plan comes in the lead-up to Australian Prime Minister's summit Tuesday with Islamic leaders, arranged after the London bombings.

The six points of the plan, according to Sydney Herald Tribune, are: A licensing system for imams; A support program for imams, to include English language teaching and lessons in Australian political and social systems; Mentors for post-school youths, to develop leadership; A college to train home-grown imams - the Islamic Research Center in Brisbane is working towards such a system under the auspices of Griffith University; Focus groups to examine community needs; and an effective media strategy to counter negative publicity.

The paper added that the Youth Forum has also written to the PM John Howard and opposition Leader John Brogden, seeking meetings to discuss problems of the minority.

"Australian Muslims are one of the most integrated communities in the West but some children at Islamic schools never get out of their own suburbs between years seven and 12," Seyit, the Forum's executive director, told the paper Sunday, August 21.

"They've never been to the northern beaches; they don't meet people of other cultures."

"We don't have ghettos like Muslims in England but some Australian Muslims do stick to their enclaves," he told the daily.

"Some sheiks tell them not to talk to non-Muslims. They have no sense of belonging to the Australian community."

During their Forum Monday, young Australian Muslims said the minority must modernize and further integrate into mainstream society, warning its isolated youth were vulnerable to "radicals", according to Reuters.

Seyit, a former school teacher, told Reuters there were some Australian Muslims who sympathized with Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and who had the potential to incite violence.

Seyit added Australia's smaller mosques needed to be brought into line with the country's mainstream mosques.

"The smaller mosques are the ones that are still using an archaic and dogmatic approach to teaching Islam – the hell-fire and brimstone approach," he told Reuters.

"What is needed is more dialogue with these imams."

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said earlier in August that up to 60 "suspected Islamic militants" in Sydney and Melbourne were under surveillance.

Australia sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan and has been on a medium-level security alert since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. But Australia has never suffered a major peacetime attack at home.

"A common thread which has run through extremists' attacks and ... declarations has been the use of a perverted interpretation of Islam," Howard told reporters.

Muslims have been in Australia for some 200 years, originally arriving as camel drivers to help explore the outback. Muslims currently make up 1.5 percent of the 20 million population and live mainly in Sydney and Melbourne.

Howard is holding a summit with Muslims Tuesday. (Reuters)

On Howard's summit with Muslims Tuesday, Seyit has told the Sydney Herald Tribune the summit would achieve nothing because it excluded key Muslims.

Another "summit", organized by the Islamic group Affinity, will be held on September 11. It will include Muslims not attending Tuesday - women, young people, Lebanese, Turks, Pakistanis, Bosnians and academics, according to the daily.

Seyit, however, called on Howard's summit to consider the Forum's plan, which calls for the accreditation and training of imams.

He said imams who migrated from the Middle East came from very different societies to modern, multi-cultural Australia.

The Forum's plan called on imams to have a certain level of competency to lead a mosque, pass a certain level of English fluency, have a basic knowledge of Australian society, its norms, traditions and politics, and undergo a character test.

It also called on the Australian government to help establish the country's first Islamic institute which would produce home-grown imams.

"The aim is to produce a new generation of home-grown Australian imams, fluent in English and accustomed to Australian society," said Seyit.