A Good Start -- But Much Tougher Fatwas Are Needed
Author: JIM GUIRARD -- TrueSpeak Institute
Source: FreeMuslain.org -- August 29, 2005
The July 28, 2005 anti-terrorism fatwa (religious edict) by thirteen distinguished Islamic scholars and jurists of the Fiqh Council of North America was well intentioned and Quranically correct as far as it went. But, like the British Muslim Council's fatwa of July 15, it simply did not go nearly far enough.
Relying on several familiar quotations from the Quran, the Council focused appropriately on the wanton killing of innocents by suicide bombers. Among these citations were
- "Whoever kills a person [unjustly], it is as though he has killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved all mankind." (Quran, 5:32)
- "We made you to be a community of the middle way, so that (with the example of your lives) you might bear witness to the truth before all mankind." (Quran, 2:143)
- "Let there arise from among you a band of people who invite to righteousness, and enjoin good and forbid evil." (Quran, 3:104)
The edict correctly concluded that "Those who commit these barbaric acts [of suicide bombing] are criminals not martyrs." But it then failed to condemn Osama bin Laden or his murderous al Qaeda Conspiracy by name, or to employ the sharp-edged Islamic religious words which were so correctly used in the far tougher Spanish Muslim fatwa of March 11, 2005.
That remarkable document by over 40 Spanish Muslim clerics, mostly Sunnis, condemned bin Laden as an "apostate" and an "infidel" and called him guilty of "istihlal" -- the arrogant sin of "playing God" by concocting his own self-serving perversion of Shari'a, Islamic Law.
In addition, while both the British and American Muslims' edicts focused appropriately on the cardinal offense of suicide mass murder ( a.k.a. "jihadi martyrdom"), neither fatwa went on to specify and to condemn all the other satanic transgressions which constitute the round-the-clock modus operandi of al Qaeda-style crimes against humanity -- Islam's word for which is Hirabah, pronounced hee-RAH-bah.
These are such de facto desecrations of the Holy Quran and such personal insults to the "peaceful, compassionate, merciful and just" Allah of the Quran as the following:
- Wanton killing of innocents and noncombatants, including many peaceful Muslims
- Decapitating the live and desecrating the dead bodies of perceived enemies
- Committing and enticing others to commit suicide for reasons of intimidation
- Fomenting hatred among communities, nations, religions and civilizations
- Ruthless warring against nations in which Islam is freely practiced
- Issuing and inspiring unauthorized and un-Islamic fatwas (religious edicts)
- Using some mosques as weapons depots and battle stations, while destroying others
- Forcing extremist and absolutist versions (and perversions) of Islam on Muslims, when the Quran clearly says that there shall be "no compulsion in religion"
- Distorting the word "infidels" to include all Christians, all Jews and many Muslims, as well -- when the Quran calls them all "Children of the Book" (the Old Testament) and "Sons of Abraham," and calls Jesus one of Islam's five main Prophets
- Deliberate misreading, ignoring and perverting of passages of the Quran, the Hadith and the Islamic Jurisprudence (the Fiqh)
Taken together, this endless list of sinful and unrepented transgressions constitutes what should become known as "The Al Qaeda Apostasy" against authentic, Quranic Islam.
And if a succession of anti-terrorism fatwas by faithful and peaceful Muslims are now to become a new rallying call against this Al Qaeda Apostasy, these religious edicts must become increasingly tougher and proactive -- rather than overly passive and impersonal.
Of course, neither of these outstanding groups of moderate Muslim scholars and clerics should be unduly criticized or "given up on." Instead, they -- and many others like them in the socio-political organizations -- should be respectfully persuaded to reconvene, to re-evaluate and to strengthen their respective anti-al Qaeda fatwas and their Resolutions of Condemnation.
Excellent models in this regard would be not only the 41 Spanish Muslim clerics' March 11, 2005 fatwa described above but also the following two other sharp condemnations which came soon thereafter, namely:
First, the March 30, 2005 Resolution of the Washington DC-area Free Muslims Coalition Against Terrorism -- which condemned al Qaeda Terrorism as an Apostasy and which (a) identified its sinful criminality not as so-called "Jihad" but as "Hirabah" (Unholy War and strictly forbidden "war against society); (b) condemned bin Laden's genocidal killers not as godly "mujahiddin" and "martyrs" but as satanic "mufsidoon" (evildoers); and (c) proclaimed that these killers are destined not for Paradise but for "Jahannam" (Eternal Hellfire), instead.
Second, the little-known May 17, 2005 fatwa by 58 Pakistani Muslim scholars and clerics which, according to media reports, a) "declared that suicide attacks in the name of Jihad are haram (forbidden) and that its perpetrators will no longer be considered Muslims" and that also sharply b) "censured religious organizations which 'brainwashed' potential suicide bombers into believing that such attacks would lead them to Paradise."
A final observation: The fact that the North American Fiqh Council's recent fatwa received so very little media attention and so little pro-and-con discussion anywhere in the world is indicative of how little of it was either new or immediately consequential.
Not even al Qaeda's leaders have bothered to complain -- simply because neither the British Muslim Council's nor the North American Fiqh Council's very well intentioned but largely insufficient fatwas were sharply harmful to them and their pseudo-Islamic scam of so-called "Jihadi martyrdom."
Had that pseudo-Islamic scam been loudly condemned as an apostasy, rather than as merely "criminal," they would now be screaming their objections.
Needed at this point is a series of increasingly tough fatwas which convincingly condemn these outside-the-religion (khawarij) enemies of Quranic Islam as the apostates, the infidels and the mufsidoon (evildoers) they really are.
A recent confirmation of this picture comes from former National Defense University scholar of Islam Mamoun Fandy who is proactively appealing for a new fatwa from the Fiqh Council which "excommunicates Osama bin Laden and his followers from the world of Islam."
Only then will their ungodly Hirabah -- i.e., their most Unholy War and their ruthless crimes against humanity -- be seen as leading its practitioners not to Allah's allegedly maiden-filled Paradise but to Satan's demon-filled Jahannam (Eternal Hellfire), instead.
JIM GUIRARD -- TrueSpeak Institute 703-768-0957 Justcauses@aol.com
A DC-area attorney, writer and national security consultant, Jim Guirard was longtime Chief of Staff to US Senators Allen Ellender and Russell Long. His new TrueSpeak Institute is devoted to truth-in-language and truth-in-history in public discourse.