One of France's largest Islamic groups issued a fatwa against rioting after officials suggested Muslim militants could be partly to blame for violent protests scarring poor neighbourhoods around the country.
The Union of French Islamic Organisations (UOIF) quoted the Koran and the Prophet Mohammad to back up the religious edict condemning the disorder and destruction the unrest caused.
Many rioters are of North African Arab and black African descent and assumed to be Muslims. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and other officials have hinted Islamist militants may be manipulating angry teenagers to defy the French state.
Muslim residents in the rundown suburbs say rioters' anger is more about unemployment and discrimination than religion. France's 5 million Muslims make up 8 percent of the population and many consider themselves second-class citizens here.
"It is formally forbidden to any Muslim seeking divine grace and satisfaction to participate in any action that blindly hits private or public property or could constitute an attack on someone's life," the fatwa said.
"Contributing to such exactions is an illicit act," declared the edict, which said it was applicable to "any Muslim living in France, whether a citizen or a guest of France."
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin received Dalil Boubakeur, head of France's Muslim Council and rector of the moderate Grand Mosque of Paris, on Saturday but has not publicly met other Muslim leaders.
Apart from Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who brought the UOIF into the Muslim Council at its creation in 2003, most French leaders have kept a critical distance from the group because of its links with the Muslim Brotherhood.
But many influential local Muslim organisations in suburbs such as those experiencing nightly violence are closer to the UOIF than other national Muslim groups. Many imams and mosque groups in the suburbs have called for calm.
Muslims were particularly incensed last week when a riot police tear gas canister landed in a mosque, forcing praying faithful to scatter in panic.
