Text of Fatwa By Bin Laden Ordering Moslems to Kill Americans

World Islamic Front | 9-23-2001 | Osama Bin Laden

[Travis McGee]

Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders

World Islamic Front Statement

23 February 1998

Shaykh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Ladin

Ayman al-Zawahiri, amir of the Jihad Group in Egypt

Abu-Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, Egyptian Islamic Group

Shaykh Mir Hamzah, secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan

Fazlul Rahman, amir of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh

Praise be to God, who revealed the Book, controls the clouds, defeats factionalism, and says in His Book: "But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war",[Surya 9-5] and peace be upon our Prophet, Muhammad Bin-'Abdallah, who said: I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but God is worshipped, God who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my orders.

The Arabian Peninsula has never -- since God made it flat, created its desert, and encircled it with seas -- been stormed by any forces like the crusader armies spreading in it like locusts, eating its riches and wiping out its plantations. All this is happening at a time in which nations are attacking Muslims like people fighting over a plate of food. In the light of the grave situation and the lack of support, we and you are obliged to discuss current events, and we should all agree on how to settle the matter.

No one argues today about three facts that are known to everyone; we will list them, in order to remind everyone:

First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.

If some people have in the past argued about the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it. The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless.

Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.

So here they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.

Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.

All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries. This was revealed by Imam Bin-Qadamah in "Al- Mughni," Imam al-Kisa'i in "Al-Bada'i," al-Qurtubi in his interpretation, and the shaykh of al-Islam in his books, where he said: "As for the fighting to repulse [an enemy], it is aimed at defending sanctity and religion, and it is a duty as agreed [by the ulema]. Nothing is more sacred than belief except repulsing an enemy who is attacking religion and life."

On that basis, and in compliance with God's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God."

This is in addition to the words of Almighty God: "And why should ye not fight in the cause of God and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)? -- women and children, whose cry is: 'Our Lord, rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will help!'"

We -- with God's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.

Almighty God said: "O ye who believe, give your response to God and His Apostle, when He calleth you to that which will give you life. And know that God cometh between a man and his heart, and that it is He to whom ye shall all be gathered."

Almighty God also says: "O ye who believe, what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of God, ye cling so heavily to the earth! Do ye prefer the life of this world to the hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For God hath power over all things."

Almighty God also says: "So lose no heart, nor fall into despair. For ye must gain mastery if ye are true in faith."

[Chapita]

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[aristeides]

I think the normal interpretation of "pagans" in this Koran passage does not include Christians and Jews, whose religions are "religions of the book" that Muslim rulers in the past have tolerated. bin Laden seems to take a different view.

[Non-Sequitur]

I noticed that this declaration is 3 years old. He had his supporters before this and he has his supporters now but he hasn't gotten a lot of support among mainstream Muslims in the interim, has he?

[SauronOfMordor]

We -- with God's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it.

The Bin Laden group (or at least some people with advance knowledge of the WTC attack) were active in the stock options market in the days leading up to the attack.

Somebody who can precisely predict when a major fall in stock prices will occur, can triple their money in the options market. You think they would have been able to resist the temptation to make a hundred million dollars?

[M Kehoe]

If there weren't any "holy places" would that mean that this fatwah would be null and void?

5.56mm

[the-ironically-named-proverbs2]

opps, "..that the Islam" should be "..that Islam". need more coffee

[the-ironically-named-proverbs2]

Agreed. It also seems that Bin Laden sees us as attacking Islam and he is just defending.

[FITZ]

You think they would have been able to resist the temptation to make a hundred million dollars?

Especially not if they can claim it was all done out of their religious beliefs.

[Travis McGee]

I am not sure how within Islam it is determined just who may issue a Fatwa. There is no "Islamic Pope", I think that leadership is much more open to anyone who can claim wide followership.

[Travis McGee]

I think that the radical islamicists have cowed and terrorized the moderates into silence.

All we get from our "moderate" Moslems are denunciations of the WTC act, but at the same time none dare put out a Fatwa against Osama Bin Laden. If they did, they know full well they would be killed by covert agents of the fanatics.

IOW, radical Islam spreads through terror, which is used to silence and disempower the non-radicals.

This is at work around the world as well as in the USA.

[Travis McGee]

Ping.

[Travis McGee]

If making a "killing" in the options on airline stocks helps the cause of the "holy jihad" then it is of course blessed by this Fatwa.

Have you noticed that none of our Koranic scholars has been by to denounce this Fatwa as a fraud?

If it is a fraud, I would hope someone would prove it.

[goldstategop]

Public opinion polls in Arab/Muslim countries are non-existent but if one had to hazard a guess, its safe to say the overwhelming majority of Arabs/Muslims (with a handful of exceptions) support terrorism, violence, and murder against Israelis and Americans. In the PLO zones where polls have been conducted, public approval of such attacks is staggering. And what we've seen in the West, its clear that on the Arab street the legitimacy of extremist violence and savagery is not confined to a marginal group of fringe extremists but is in fact the view of the vast popular majority. We in the West would like to think every one especially a MAJORITY of people everywhere oppose terror, murder, and violence, but unfortunately this is not the case. Now its true most Arabs/Muslims do not themselves in engage in terrorism, violence, and murder but that is not the point. After all a majority of Germans in Nazi Germany did not personally take part in the Holocaust either, neverthless overwhelmingly supported genocide of the Jews. There is the same phenomenon here and the most Arabs/Muslims have been Nazified to an extent unprecedented in history. As the U.S and the U.K move to attack Islamist Nazis in the Arab/Muslim world, its safe to predict that if any thing the already deep-rooted hatred of the West and America will increase accordingly. Let's make no mistake about it: while one would wish the Islamist Nazis were an extremist faction shunned by the overwhelming majority in the world from which they come from, the empirical reality demonstrates the opposite is true. Therefore if history is any guide we will be in for a long and arduous struggle to make the world safe for freedom and democracy.

[Travis McGee]

It probably won't get reported in the US, but Saddam offered it condolances to American civilians and offered intelligence assistance.

Oh gee, that's good enough for me, that certainly proves that Saddam has moved over to the side of righteousness.

I wonder why in the days after 9-11 all of the papers in Iraq were calling the WTC destruction a righteous act?

The Iraqi papers must be full of brave dissidents to oppose the word of Saddam.

< /sarcasm >

Now will you please address this Fatwa?

[Travis McGee]

There is no way to tell what percentage of the moslem world supports the Fatwa of Osama Bin Ladin and his mega murdering tactics, and what percentage has merely been cowed into silence through fear of certain death at the hands of radical assassins.

[patent]

bump

[Travis McGee]

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[Travis McGee]

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