Muslims react with horror to spate of global attacks during Ramadan
Families in Baghdad were preparing to go shopping for sweets, given to children to mark Eid al-Fitr, the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Instead, mothers and fathers bought coffins for their boys and girls killed in an incredibly deadly suicide bombing.
The attack in the Iraqi capital Sunday was the most violent carried out by ISIS during Ramadan. The scope of the death may be shocking; the fact the self-proclaimed Islamic State was responsible is not.
Ramadan began at midnight of June 6, but weeks before, the chief ISIS spokesman said jihadists should "make it a month of calamity for the infidels everywhere," suggesting attacks on military and civilian targets.
And what a bloody month it has been, with militants or those pledging allegiance to ISIS carrying out attacks that have killed hundreds.
There were three separate bombings in Saudi Arabia on Monday, including a brazen suicide attack outside the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, the second holiest place in Islam. Four security officers were killed, five others wounded.
No group has said it's behind the Saudi attacks, but suspicion quickly fell upon ISIS.
While it's impossible to say for certain that all of the violence over the last month was carried out with Ramadan in mind, the list of attacks between June 8 and July 5 is long and shocking:
- 4 Israelis were killed in a shooting rampage at a busy Tel Aviv market. Israel's Shin Bet security service says the two Palestinian cousins accused of the shootings were inspired by ISIS.
- A gunman who claimed to be acting for ISIS killed 49 people at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.
- 7 security personnel in Jordan were killed in a suicide bombing at a border crossing into Syria.
- Attackers launched two waves of bombings in Lebanon killing five people.
- A day after the Lebanon bombings, 41 were killed in three blasts at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport.
- 20 hostages at a restaurant were executed by gunmen in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
- Most recently, a bomb attack in the Karrada district Baghdad has claimed at least 175 lives.
Most Muslims mark Ramadan by fasting, limiting other regular pleasures such as smoking, praying and spending time with friends and family.
They view with horror and outrage the way ISIS has tried to pervert the holy month with its call for carnage.
The highest religious authority in Saudi Arabia, the Senior Council of the Ulema, said the attackers had "violated everything that is sacred."
Iran's foreign minister Javad Zarif called for Muslims to "stand united."
Hayder al-Khoei, the research director at the Centre for Academic Shia Studies and an associate fellow at London's Chatham House, expressed his disbelief.
Najib Rajak, the prime minister of Malaysia, said he was shocked by word of the attack in Medina.
Setting aside differences, prominent voices in the Muslim world have united to condemn the violence, particularly after Monday's attack.
