Qatar-based Qaradawi, who heads a highly influential body of international scholars, broadcast a statement on Al Jazeera yesterday urging the kidnappers to release the two Austrians.  "I urge you in the name of God, Islam, the Qur'an and the interest of the [Islamic] nation to free the two hostages for the sake of the dignity of this religion," he said. "[The hostages] have no guilt. They are innocent civilians used to punish others or apply pressure on them. In Islam people are only responsible for what the do individually."

Now the last time I blogged about Qaradawi was when the Home Office decided to ban him from the UK. Despite letting him in on a number of previous occasions, the government refused Qaradawi a visa over his already well publicised (and predictably conservative for a Sunni cleric) views on homosexuality and suicide bombings in Israel - the latter being permissible, the former definitely not.

America has also banned him and it may have helped that the Conservative leader David Cameron was making political capital out of the Home Office's indecision over Qaradawi's visa request - although that quickly turned to embarassment when it was revealed previous Tory governments had let Qaradawi in five times before.

I suggested at the time that the government might end up shooting themselves in the foot over Qaradawi because, despite his rather unpleasant views on a number of issues, he's a very respected figure across the Muslim world and is a relatively moderate cleric compared to many of his contemporaries. But when I asked readers whether we were right to ban Qaradawi I was inundated with replies, predominantly along the lines of: "About time, sling him out and keep him out."

That reaction is understandable. Why would we want to let someone into the country who has said gay men and women living in countries that use Shari'a should be punished with death or that human bombs targeting civilians in Israel are acceptable?

But the fact of the matter is that every faith produces conservative movements which hold views that many will find abhorrent. And maybe we should be careful not to alienate everyone who we disagree with because we may find ourselves needing these people more than they need us?

Qaradawi may support what he calls the resistance in Palestine and Iraq but compared to the violent extremist groups gaining in popularity throughout the Muslim world he's a desperately needed voice of relative reason. And more importantly when he and others like him speak the wider Muslim world listens.

The next time a Britain gets kidnapped I just hope we haven't burned too many bridges with people like Qaradawi who may be able to help secure their release and are far better placed than our discredited governments to counter the kind of violent extremism in the Islamic world which leads to hostage taking in the first place.