Experts, community leaders and politicians are urging Canadians not to associate the alleged Ontario terrorist plot with the Muslim community as a whole.

They say although the alleged terrorist suspects are Muslim, it would be a mistake to see the faith as a monolithic pro-terrorist force.

Muslim community leaders, in particular, want Canadians to understand that they are just as eager as any other citizen to discourage radical interpretations of the Qur'an.

Shabir Ally, the president of the Islamic Information and Dawah Centre International, an organization which reaches out to non-Muslims to raise awareness about Islam, is a proponent of contextualizing the Qur'an.

Ally blames youth extremism on the radical clerics who interpret some of the passages of the Qur'an literally in order to fuel violent rage against non-Muslims.

"It is important that these texts be contextualized. Most Muslims who do not subscribe to a violent outlook on life, they just simply ignore these texts," Ally told CTV Newsnet on Tuesday.

Other Muslim organizations have been quick to point out that these radical interpretations represent a very small minority of the faith.

"The individuals charged on the of second June 2006 represent a very thin wedge of the Muslim community who has been influenced by the radical and extreme Salafi-Wahabi ideology," the Canadian Council of Ahl Sunna wal Jamaah (CCAS) said in a press release.

The council, which represents over thirty mosques and Islamic organizations in Ontario and Quebec, issued the release on June 4.

"CCAS wish to make it clear that individuals possessing such beliefs and ideas do not reflect mainstream Islamic values of the majority of Canadian Muslims," the council said.

Wesley Wark, a professor at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies, stresses that this alleged homegrown terrorist cell does not represent a failure of multiculturalism.

"I don't think there's much (support) for terrorist thinking among the Muslim community or other ethnic communities," he told The Canadian Press.

"That doesn't mean that occasionally small numbers of individuals might decide to go down that path, encouraged by visiting jihadist websites, encouraged by the general propaganda that swirls out of al Qaeda," Wark said.

"But I think there's little likelihood of much broad-based support for terrorist activity among ethnic groups in Canada."

Youth extremism

What is especially shocking for most people about the alleged homegrown terror cell is the young ages of the accused.

Acording to Irshad Manji, author of 'The Trouble with Islam Today,' the popular theory on why young Muslim men seem to be particularly vulnerable to extremism is that they feel caught between two cultures -- the culture of Islam and the culture of the West.

"They become easy prey, particularly for Internet preachers who say 'this is who you are, this is where you belong, this is what you must believe," Manji told Canada AM Tuesday.

After speaking with individuals surrounding London's homegrown terror cell, Manji found that young English-speaking Muslim boys turn to the Internet for moral guidance because their parents will often refuse to learn English.

In the case of the London terrorists, "they found English-speaking radical preachers who gave them the so-called wisdom and so-called guidance that they were seeking," she said.

The solution, according to Liberal Omar Alghabra -- one of Canada's four Muslim MPs --, lies in community leaders shutting the door on any opportunity for radicalization.

"We need to make sure those people who are bent on radical ideologies don't recruit and seduce our youth," Alghabra told The Canadian Press.

"Ultimately the goal is to offer venues and opportunities to youth and community members to be empowered and to be engaged rather than being seduced by any form of radicalization that may be the outcome of marginalization."