Israel Matzav

Interesting facts about Yusuf al-Qarawadi

6. At the same time, building a bridge between the exigencies of Muslim emigrants’ daily lives and Islamic religious law also includes regarding taking over Europe as Islam’s next target. In 2003, al-Qaradawi issued a fatwa declaring that “Islam will return to Europe as a victorious conqueror after having been expelled twice. This time it will not be conquest by the sword, but by preaching and spreading [Islamic] ideology…The future belongs to Islam…The spread of Islam until it conquers the entire world and includes the both East and West marks the beginning of the return of the Islamic Caliphate…”

7. Although al-Qaradawi opposes Al-Qaida and its methods, he enthusiastically supports Palestinian terrorism, including suicide bombing attacks targeting the civilian Israeli population. In the past he also supported “resistance” (i.e., terrorism) to the occupation of Iraq. He issued fatwas calling for jihad against Israel and the Jews, and authorizing suicide bombing attacks even if the victims were women and children. He regards all of “Palestine” as Muslim territory (according to Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas ideology), strongly opposes the existence of the State of Israel and rejects the peace treaties signed with it, and opposes the Palestinian Authority. (In the past, he called for the stoning of Mahmoud Abbas.)

8. In response to the dramatic events in Egypt, al-Qaradawi (whose statements are widely reported in Egypt) expressed his support for the demonstrators. He called on the Egyptian people to fight the despots and forbade the security forces to shoot civilians. The IslamOnline website recently posted a chapter of his book [Islamic] Law and Jihad, according to which jihad against corruption and a tyrannical regime is the most exalted form of jihad, even more important than jihad against external enemies.

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19. Al-Qaradawi’s enthusiastic support of Palestinian terrorism, including when it is directed against civilians, reflects his claim that Israel is a militaristic society where every civilian is a potential soldier. He has also issued fatwas authorizing attacks on Jews around the world because in his view there is no essential difference between Judaism and Zionism, and therefore every Jewish target equals an Israeli target. His status as a leading Sunni Muslim cleric gives added importance to his fatwas supporting Palestinian terrorism and make him particularly influential in shaping anti-Israeli sentiments in the Arab-Muslim world.

20. In July 2003, during the height of the suicide bombing terrorism (the second intifada), he addressed the issue of suicide bombings at an ECFR conference. He said that istishhad (death as a martyr for the sake of Allah), carried out by Palestinian organizations to oppose the so-called “Zionist occupation,” were by no means to be defined as terrorism.

21. Senior Hamas figures relied on al-Qaradawi’s fatwas which authorize suicide bombing attacks against Israel to justify such attacks. For example: a) Sheikh Hamid al-Bitawi, a senior Hamas activist in Judea and Samaria, relying on an al- Qaradawi fatwa, said that according to Islamic jurisprudence, “jihad is a collective duty…” and that if infidels occupy any bit of Muslim land – such as the occupation of Palestine by the Jews – jihad becomes the duty of every individual, thus making it permissible to carry out suicide bombing attacks. b) Dr. Abd al-Aziz al-Rantisi, a senior Hamas leader who died in a targeted killing, relying on a fatwa issued by al-Qaradawi, said that “suicide depends on intention. If the person intends to kill himself because he is fed up with life, that is suicide (which is prohibited). However, if he wants to die to strike at the enemy and to receive a reward from Allah, he is considered as delivering up his soul [and not as committing suicide].”

22. To help fund Hamas’s civilian infrastructure (the da’wah) al-Qaradawi established the Union of Good, which he heads today. It is an umbrella organization which raises money for Hamas and other Islamist activities around the globe. The Union of Good was declared a terrorism-sponsoring organization and outlawed by Israel in February 2002. In December 2002 it was designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and outlawed.

23. At the beginning of 2010 he criticized Abbas for a UN vote regarding the Goldstone Report, and issued a fatwa calling for Abbas to be stoned in Mecca. Abbas demanded a retraction from al-Qaradawi, who denied having issued the fatwa. However, he did admit that during a sermon he said that if accusations against any person in the Palestinian Authority were proved true [i.e., that he had supported the cancellation of the vote on the Goldstone Report], that person should be stoned in Mecca as punishment for treason. In response, Mahmoud al-Habash, the Palestinian Authority minister of religion and endowments, said that his ministry had ordered all preachers in PA mosques to attack al-Qaradawi personally.

24. Al-Qaradawi has often made anti-Semitic remarks. For example, his “Life and Islamic Law” program broadcast on March 15, 2009, discussed the topic of righteous Muslims in Islam. One of the viewers called in and asked about the role of the righteous (al-salkhoun) in the Koran in the liberation of the [Islamic] holy places and the victory of the [Muslim] nation. Al-Qaradawi used the opportunity to attack the Jews, basing his answer on a hadith [oral tradition] calling for the murder of Jews. On the program he said that righteous Muslims were “the salt of the earth” who were always instrumental in liberating lands. He called them a source of hope and said he hoped that through them Jerusalem would be “liberated,” as would “Palestine,” the Gaza Strip, and all the lands ruled by the enemies of the Muslims. He said that the war against the Jews was not only the war of the Palestinians but of all Muslims. He said that the prophet Muhammad had said that “you will continue to fight the Jews and they will fight you until the Muslims kill them. The Jew hides behind rock and tree. The rock and the tree say, ‘Oh, slave of Allah, oh, Muslim, here is the Jew behind me, come and kill him.’”

25. Al-Qaradawi denounced the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and said it was the duty of every Muslim to help bring the perpetrators to trial. As opposed to his opposition to Al-Qaida, he called for attacks on Americans fighting in Iraq. In August 2004, the “Pluralism in Islam” conference was held by Egypt’s Journalists’ Union in Cairo. At the conference al-Qaradawi issued a fatwa allowing the abduction and murder of American civilians in Iraq to exert pressure on the American army to remove its forces. He emphasized that “all the Americans in Iraq are fighters, there is no difference between civilians and soldiers, and they have to be fought against because the American civilians come to Iraq to serve the occupation. Abducting and killing them is a [religious] duty to make [the Americans] leave [Iraq] immediately. [On the other hand] abusing their corpses is forbidden by Islam.”

26. Al-Qaradawi issued the fatwa a week after public figures from various Muslim countries had published an open letter calling for support for the forces fighting the coalition in Iraq. It was signed by 93 Islamic clerics and public figures, including al-Qaradawi and figures from the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. Ten days later, al-Qaradawi sent a fax to the London-based daily Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat denying “what the media said” and insisting he never issued a fatwa on the issue. Before the denial was issued, Azzam Halima, al-Qaradawi’s office manager, had confirmed that al- Qaradawi issued a fatwa stating that it was a duty to fight the American civilians in Iraq because they were invaders.

Labels: Islam, Yusuf al-Qaradawi

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:18 PM