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| Saudi Ulema Council issues fatwa vs. funding terrorism | ||||
| 2010-06-15 | ||||
It remains a potent issue: Terrorism has damaged the Islamic world far more than the West, and too many Muslims have been cowed and silent. But a powerful and so far largely unreported denunciation of terrorism emerged last month from Saudi Arabia's top religious leadership, known as the Council of Senior Ulema. The Saudi fatwa is a tough condemnation of terror, and of the underground network that finances it. It has impressed senior U.S. military commanders and intelligence officers, who were initially surprised when it came out. One sent me a translation of the fatwa, and Saudi officials provided some helpful background. "There is no gray area here," said a senior Saudi official. "Once it has come out like this, from the most senior religious body in the kingdom, it's hard for a lesser religious authority to justify violence." The fatwa begins with a clear definition of terrorism, which it calls "a crime aiming at destabilizing security" by attacking people or property, public or private. The document goes on to list examples of this criminal activity: "blowing up of dwellings, schools, hospitals, factories, bridges, airplanes (including hijacking), oil and pipelines." It doesn't mention any geographical area where such actions might be permissible.
The fatwa goes on: "The financier of terrorism is more often than not more dangerous than the actual terrorist, since without funds, schemes fail and things do not take place," said Fahd Al-Majid, the secretary-general of the Senior Ulema Council, in a May 23 interview with Asharq al-Awsat, a London-based Arabic daily. Given the role that wealthy Saudis have played in financing radical Islamic groups in the past, the fatwa has a significant potential impact. For Muslims in the kingdom, it has the force of law and it will provide a strong religious and legal backing for Saudi and other Arab security services as they track terrorist networks. It will be harder, too, for renegade clerics to issue rival fatwas that contradict the Saudi Ulema. The signatories are guardians of the conservative Wahhabi school of Islam, which to observers has sometimes seemed to sympathize with the Muslim extremists. The fatwa, dated April 12 but issued publicly in May, was approved unanimously by the 19 members of the council. To implement the fatwa, the Saudi Shura council is drafting a counterterrorism finance law. Saudi sources say that King Abdullah initiated the process that led to the fatwa, by asking for a ruling on terrorist financing. His push on the issue contrasts with the royal family's traditional wariness of challenging or offending the clerical establishment, on which its legitimacy rests. What matters in Saudi Arabia and most other Muslim countries is what its political and religious leaders say to their own people, in Arabic. By that measure, there's a new voice for moderation coming from the Muslim clerical establishment.
According to the Saudi daily Al-Riyadh, Saudi Arabia intends to use the fatwa as a legal basis for fighting domestic terrorism, and also intends to promote international laws against the funding of terrorism and to submit initiatives on the matter at international forums.[1] | ||||
| Posted by: |
| #6 Citing evidence from the Koran and the Hadith, the fatwa stipulates that funding terrorism is forbidden not only in Muslim countries but everywhere, and that those who aid terrorism are just as culpable as those who actually carry it out. Seems like I've heard that sometime before...maybe in 2001. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2010-06-15 16:31 |
| #5 Perhaps they're upset about the use of drones. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2010-06-15 07:15 |
| #4 Is, tehre anyone here able to and willin to tell us what is in the _real_ text? |
| Posted by: JFM 2010-06-15 06:21 |
| #3 " Lips moving?" No, this might actually be saying something. We will see. It has only been out a month. Lets see what happens over the next year or so. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2010-06-15 05:16 |
| #2 Lips moving? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2010-06-15 01:11 |
| #1 here is the next to last bit of the Fatwa per Memri), "...We beseech Allah to [bless] this good country of Saudi Arabia, and all the Muslim lands, with righteousness, justice, providence and unity, and to improve the state of mankind as a whole, so as to carry out justice and spread righteousness." Key point is that whatever else may be in this, this section seems to allow continued terrorism (or as they call it "active resistance") in non Muslim lands. |
| Posted by: lord garth 2010-06-15 00:30 |