Posted on 10/09/2001 9:48:18 PM PDT by ChemistCat
Muslim scholars says bin Laden's call for jihad wrong
Melissa Meredith
Osama bin Laden’s references to recent terrorist attacks as the beginning of a religious war in his videotaped broadcast Sunday has sparked an argument from Muslim students and experts of the faith.
Although bin Laden has called his acts of terrorism a “jihad,” a religious war or crusade, Islamic law rejects his terrorist actions, said Joshua Landis, assistant professor of Middle Eastern history.
“America cannot let bin Laden win this propaganda war and our country should stress that his actions do not fit the requirements of a religious war,” Landis said. “He’s trying to confuse people by attempting to justify his actions with the Muslim faith.”
Islamic law states there are six reasons that a jihad can be declared falsified, Landis said. The war is in violation of a jihad:
• if individuals or organizations are involved (only states can engage in the crusade), • if innocent women or children are killed,
• if Muslims are killed,
• if the jihad is fought against a country in which people are allowed to practice the Islam faith freely,
• if prominent Muslim jurists condemn the acts • if the welfare and interest of Muslim community (also called maslaha) is being harmed by the actions.
Bin Laden has violated all six of these statements in Islamic Law, Landis said. Prominent Muslim jurists have condemned bin Laden’s actions and rejected his claim that his actions are in the interest of a religious crusade.
“This terrorist is not a religious scholar, but just a citizen popping up and deciding to declare war,” said Matt Fanning, marketing junior. “Bin Laden is simply trying to justify his actions by declaring it a crusade to gain more followers.”
Bin Laden devised his speech well from the start by trying to defend Muslims by discussing oppression and conflict they have experienced for many years, Landis said. By leading Muslims to think he is a true believer of the faith after preaching it for most of his speech, bin Laden then tried to justify his actions through the religion as being a jihad.
“Many Muslims do feel that they have been oppressed for many years, so bin Laden is attempting to win their approval by speaking about it,” Landis said. “He wants to convince them to move to the next stage of war.”
With many people asking why bin Laden has targeted America for his terrorist attacks, there are many interpretations. Bin Laden’s view of the oppression that his followers have experienced began in the Persian Gulf war, Fanning said.
“Bin Laden thinks that America desecrated what he believes to be a holy land when the U.S. placed military bases in Saudi Arabia during the war,” Fanning said.
Bin Laden also rejects the funding provided to Israel in military aid. America has given over $3 billion in military aid to Israel, the largest recipient in the world, Landis said. Bin Laden is using the fact that America supports the Israeli acquisition in the west bank of the Jordan River as an oppressive action against Muslims.
“While international law rejects Israel’s action because the conquest of land through war is illegal, America is saying these actions aren’t illegal,” Landis said. “This gives America a vulnerability that bin Laden can take to extremes and turn it around to say we don’t care about Muslims.”
Although many people recognize that America is not doing everything bin Laden is saying, he is still going to use these vulnerbilities to oppress his followers and use misguided hypocracies to say Western ideals are bad, Landis said.
I hope this is true. Why aren't citations given? Why haven't we seen these condemnations in the media?
Yes, this would be more convincing if it came from a Muslim religious leader. Where do they stand on this?
I hope this is true. Why aren't citations given? Why haven't we seen these condemnations in the media?
LOL, you haven't seen this in the media because it's BS!
This is a lie, any Muslim who speaks against these SOB's is condemned to death.
I believe them when they say they are waging a holy war against us.
Soon enough, most other Americans will too.
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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:
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."
If they had violated that doctrine - which they have not.
Read: From Time Immemorial.
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Wouldn't it be nice if Landis were speaking from Afghanistan.
For years I have been telling my kids that Metallica crap is not Western Culture. "Mozart and Beethoven and those chaps are Western Culture," says I.
"Baloney," say my kids, "who people like and who they follow is their culture." (Never could get them to use "whom," which I also have maintained is part of Western Culture, like Bologna.)
"Osama bin Laden is not Islam," say the moderate Muslims and the experts like Landis.
But worldwide, he is the most popular Muslim seen since Mohammed. There is a higher form of Islam out there, with people as devoted to it as opera lovers are to Bellini. However, it is having just as much effect on Muslim Culture as I am having on FM radio.
Muslim culture is what Muslims are doing right now, worldwide. Muslim culture is not what moderate American Muslims say to allay our fears as they are living among us. Islam is on the march to a different drummer from one end of this planet to the other.
But worldwide, he is the most popular Muslim seen since Mohammed. There is a higher form of Islam out there, with people as devoted to it as opera lovers are to Bellini. However, it is having just as much effect on Muslim Culture as I am having on FM radio.Bump to that.
patent
You said it.
We need to remember that there are any number of academics who regularly say the Bible is fiction, and that Christian are all delusional and, often, dangerous... The "elites" seem to have a hatred for religion simply on principle.
This war on "terrorism" is, to my eyes, dangerously close to actually being (1) a war on people who take religion seriously; (2) a war on people who take their view of nationalism seriously.
Basically, that's all bin Laden is -- he's a guy who takes _his_ religion seriously, and he's a guy who wants a generalized Arabia to be Arab...
If we allow this guy to be _demonized_ for _these_ beliefs, then after the war, a lot of US evangelical Christians and gung ho patriots are going to have a lot to be nervous about. (We've already had Gloria Steinem in some speech explicity comparing Americans who dissent from the NOW agenda to the Taliban...)
Mark W.
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