The Boston area Muslim American Society sent out an e-mail yesterday pointing out a fatwa at Islam-Online issued by Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi, among others. You can read the fatwa here, it ostensibly condemns attacking and killing civilians. From the MAS e-mail:
"Aas-salaamu alaikum. Its been said time and again, but here it is in yet another juridical ruling, following yesterday's bombing at Dahab (Egypt). This fatwa is from by the IUMS ( Shaykh Yusuf al Qaradawi, Ayatullah Muhammad Al-Taskhiri, Dr. `Abdullah Bin Bayyah, Sheikh Ahmad Bin Hamad Al-Khalili ) Please take this message to your neighbors and friends, who might think such actions are encouraged or permitted in our religion."
Yes, that's the same Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi who recently commented on Jews' "well-known stinginess, miserliness, and selfishness." Qaradawi openly supports suicide bombing by Palestinians, and killing Israeli women and children. (They're not really civilians, you see, since Israeli women give birth to children, and their children grow up to be Israeli soldiers.) He's said "The martyr operations is the greatest of all sorts of Jihad in the Cause of Allah." Color me unimpressed with his fatwa. More double-speak.
I used to work for a state agency where I became quite adept at using weasel words. We didn't want to promise too much. The Islamists who wrote this fatwa could give lessons to state bureaucrats on weasel words, they were masterful. There's some interesting parsing of words in the fatwa:
- "Islam considers killing others and taking their lives as one of the gravest of sins in the sight of Allah. Such heinous sin and abominable crime lead to Allah’s curse in this world and His severe punishment in the Hereafter." (Except that "The above divine warning encompasses all those who utter the Two Shahadahs—testifying that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah." Hmmm, for Muslims only, in other words.)
- "The above ruling also applies to those who have a permanent pledge with Muslims. This category of people is named by Muslim jurists as Dhimmi or non-Muslims living under the protection of the Muslim state.... Anyone who kills a Dhimmi will not smell the fragrance of Paradise (Al-Bukhari)." (OK, so maybe they extend this "protection" to Christians and Jews, but not to anybody else. Explain to me why dhimmis need protection again? Not so great.....)
- "There is another category of people who have an interim pledge with Muslims, such as those who enter Islamic territories through the state authorities or any other recognized body such as travel agencies, etc. Those innocent victims (in Sharm El-Sheikh) were peaceful Egyptians and tourists given the pledge of security as clarified above." (My tourist visa protects me from suicide bombers, according to this fatwa? I'm not relieved.)
Daniel Pipes offers more details here on what's meant by "innocent" civilians by Islamic scholars.
I'm dismayed that American Muslims promote this stuff. They are the most educated and privileged Muslims of the world, and yet they promote this duplicitous nonsense.
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