Australia's highest ranking Muslim has refused to call last week's Parramatta shooting an act of terror but condemned the violence and blamed deviant interpretations of Islam as being part of the toxic mix that leads to the radical-isation of young people. 
Grand Mufti Ibrahim Abu -Mohammed said imported versions of Islam, together with "sheik Twitter" and "sheik Facebook" combined to infiltrate the minds of young Muslims.
But Dr Mohammed said the factors were more complex than religion alone and needed to mix with the individual circumstances of people, their psychological profile and their social status before creating violent extremists.
"All of these factors in association with misguided and deviant so-called religious teachings become a dangerous recipe with disastrous consequences," he said.
"Australia deserves for us to -remain a cohesive society. I would say to whoever supported (the Parramatta shooting) to stop messing with Australia and its -society ... we refute and reject any form of terror." Dr Mohammed called violent extremism a "rare but serious problem facing the entire community" and agreed there was a generation gap between the Muslim leadership and young, Australian-born Muslims.
"If you are 45 or 50 years old, there is naturally a gap between you and your son," he said. "The question is how can we help the parents to understand their children?" Muslim Women's Association head Maha Abdo said parents would know the feeling of despair when a child fails them or they feel they have failed their children.
"You feel like an incompetent parent," she said. "Australian Muslim women are hurting because that could have been my child.
"Faith, whatever faith, is the backbone of society and young people need that. "If they do not have that pure faith, that is when they fall into that trap. We do not want history to repeat itself." Dr Mohammed said Muslim communities needed "proper dialogue" with government bodies, particularly the security agencies."There is one more critical thing ... we want proper dialogue between us and the rest of Australian society," he said. "It should be a learning exercise and we should refute any misconceptions."