Fatwa Watch 2003

From this:

CAIRO, 6 April 2003 - Suicide attacks on the US-led coalition in Iraq are "permitted under (Islamic) religious law," the sheikh of Al-Azhar, the highest Sunni Muslim spiritual authority, Muhammad Sayed Tantawi, said here yesterday... He also indirectly criticized the Iraqi and the Kuwaiti leaders.

Saddam Hussein should have accepted a call from the United Arab Emirates last month to resign in order to prevent war, he said. "Had this initiative gone through, it would have preserved the blood of many Muslims and we would not be seeing the massacres under way against the Iraqi people."

On March 27, Syria's Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Kaftaro, the country's top Muslim religious authority, called for suicide bombings against US and British troops in Iraq...

The top Palestinian religious authority yesterday banned Muslims from aiding the US-led war in Iraq. "All Muslim scholars in Palestine declare a fatwa (edict) forbidding any Muslim to participate in that aggressive war, or even to lend the voracious invaders a hand," said the Al-Fatwa Supreme Council, an assembly of clerics from the West Bank and Gaza Strip...

Lebanon's top Shiite leader urged Arabs and Muslims yesterday to resist any American governor or US-backed government set up to run Iraq immediately after the war. "We as Arabs and Muslims ... will not give any legitimacy to any government set up in Iraq under an American administration or through efforts by the American administration to project legitimacy on some who will act according to its instructions," Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah said in Beirut.

India: March 30: Darul Uloom, Deoband, one of the oldest and most prestigious religious schools of Sunni Muslims around the world has re-issued a fatwa asking Indians in general and Indian Muslims in particular to boycott consumer products of American and British companies in protest against the US-led attack on Iraq.

Iraq: March 29: Iraq's top Muslim cleric issued a fatwa or religious decree also calling for jihad

Another article on the Egpytian fatwa: Al-Azhar, Egypt's most prestigious Islamic institution, issued a fatwa (religious decree) this month that it is the duty of all Muslims to defend Iraq against foreign invasion. "If the enemy descends on the land of Muslims, jihad becomes an Islamic obligation ... because our Arab and Islamic community will be facing a new Crusade targeting our land, honor, faith and nation," it declared...

Amman, Jordan: A fatwa calling for the expulsion of American troops from Jordanian soil has been issued by the Islamic Action Front here, as thousands of people continue to protest against the killings of innocent civilians in Iraq.

Iraq: Confusion now shrouds a US claim on Thursday that Iraq's supreme Shi'a Muslim cleric had issued a religious decree calling on the populace not to impede coalition forces.

Pakistan: "Ulema belonging to various schools of thoughts describe Fidayee (suicide) attacks by Iraqis against coalition forces as in line with Sharia and say killed Fidayeen were "martyrs."

Also see 'Analysis: volunteers come to Iraq's aid'

Terrorism · Sat, 04/05/2003 - 15:46 · · Importance: 1