The Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity (ISIC) is the educational arm of BARNABAS FUND. THE ISIC BRIEFING No. 18 11 April 2003 CALLS FOR JIHAD WIDESPREAD IN ISLAMIC WORLD In the month since ISIC reported Sheikh Mohammad Sayyid at-Tantawi and Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi's calls for jihad, the war in Iraq has begun (and now seems mercifully close to an end) and fatwas proclaiming jihad against America and Britain have become widespread and have been issued by many prominent and influential religious leaders in the Islamic world. This is perhaps a development to be expected, but calls to widen the conflict which will incite antipathy between the West and Islam are irresponsible and dangerous. THE CALLS FOR JIHAD First it must be said that clerics are not unanimous in their call for jihad; there are a few prominent examples of reasoned and conciliatory rhetoric. In Russia the two most influential Muslim leaders are divided; on the one hand the Supreme Mufti of the Central Islamic Spiritual Board of Muslims of Holy Russia, Talgat Tadjuddin, has declared "We will raise donations for a fund, and use the money to buy armaments for fighting America and food for the people of Iraq" ; but on the other, the Chief Mufti of Russia, Ravil Gainutdin, has condemned this populist move and said "instead they should pray to Allah that the Iraqi people's suffering ends". Other leaders have made similar more conciliatory and calming statements. Some of the comments coming out of mosques during Friday prayers give an insight into why the call to jihad is so widespread. "America and its ally Britain are now showing their hideous face and their fangs to swallow a dear part of the land of Arabism and Islam" claimed the Imam at the As-Safa mosque in the Libyan capital, Tripoli; he added that the U.N. was "now a tool in the hands of America" and it "terrorises only Arabs and Muslims and provides security for the Jews and the Crusaders". This theme was picked up in Damascus, Khartoum and Lahore where it was claimed that the main aim of the war was to establish a greater Israel or ensure its dominance. Also in Pakistan, at the main Red Mosque in Islamabad, Mohammad Abdul Aziz told the gathering of 2,000 that "It gives a peculiar taste and spiritual joy when you chant Allahu Akbar (God is great) as enemy jets rain down bombs during the war". In Egypt the Islamic Research Centre of the prestigious Al-Azhar university in Cairo issued a statement on 10 March which proclaimed "if the enemy raids the land of the Muslims, Jihad becomes an individual's commandment, applying to every Muslim man and woman, because our Muslim nation will be subject to a new Crusader invasion targeting the land, honour, belief and homeland." Sheikh Mohammad Sayyid Al-Tantawi, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, and the closest that the greatly diverse Sunni Muslim community has to a supreme authority or figurehead, reportedly rejects the idea that the war is a new crusade and has even dismissed the head of the Fatwa Committee at Al-Azhar (following the latter's assertion that Muslims killed in the conflict against the U.S. and British would be considered martyrs). However he has referred to the U.S. and British forces as terrorists, and has issued a statement at odds with his above action asserting that martyr operations are "permitted under the Islamic religious law" to face U.S. aggression; and that attempts to stop it is "jihad and . a binding Islamic duty". Furthermore he has approved a communiqué which states "our Arab and Islamic nation, and even our faith are a main target of all [U.S. and British] military forces". Meanwhile Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, the Mufti of Egypt, has said that "Any attempt to invade Iraq is forbidden by Islamic religious law and by morality, and Islam forbids it, and even commands its believers to resist attempts at invasion and occupation." It is clear from other comments around the Muslim world what is being meant by jihad: "America has signed its own death warrant", according to Maulana Fazl ur-Rahman, Secretary-General of the conservative Islamic Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal party which governs two of Pakistan's four provinces. "Now jihad is justified" he went on to say, though he warned "it should be . against American oppression and not against the Western world." In neighbouring Afghanistan posters purporting to bear the words of deposed Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar declare "Whenever the non-Muslims attack a Muslim land it is the duty of everyone to rise against the aggressor". In Yemen, the Yemeni Scholars Society has issued "A statement calling for Jihad in all forms against US and UK troops". In Saudi Arabia Ahmed bin Abdullah al-Madi, a professor of Islamic law, has said it is legitimate for US and British "targets to be hit anywhere in the world until the attack on Iraq stops." Similarly Sheikh Faysal Mawlawi, Deputy Chairman of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, has issued a ruling on attacking US and British military targets in the Middle East stating that "if attacking these bases will not lead to internal strife, then the basic Islamic ruling is that they are aggressive troops and launching jihad against them is fard 'ayn (an individual obligation) upon every Muslim who is able to do so." ANALYSIS We in the West are often urged to be responsible in the kind of language that we use; we need to be careful that we do not, for example, use language that in any way evokes the crusades. Such careless usage of language could further entrench a fundamental polarising of Western and Muslim nations. However, the responsibility lies with Islam as well. It seems to be evident that calls to jihad have been widespread throughout the Islamic world in recent weeks. Perhaps this is something that does not surprise us, perhaps we even expect it. It is of course entirely legitimate for Islamic leaders to strongly criticise the actions of the US and UK (as indeed have many Christian leaders), and even to have supported the Iraqi regime and wished to have seen it victorious. However, the kind of statements quoted above go far beyond this. By introducing the factor of jihad and religious war into a fundamentally political conflict they threaten to greatly inflame the tensions which have resulted from the conflict in Iraq. At a time when careful words are needed to avoid the risk of a "clash of civilisations" such comments are dangerously irresponsible and only serve to twist the knife of hatred. If the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury or other respected Christian leaders had called for a crusade in response to the bombing of Christian Serbs in Kosovo in 1999 there would have been massive international condemnation of such inflammatory and dangerous statements by influential Christian leaders. Similar condemnation would result today if they called for a crusade to defend the largely Christian people of South Sudan from the conservative Islamic regime of that country which for twenty years has waged a war far more costly, ruthless and brutal against them than the conflict currently being played out in Iraq. Why does the world remain silent and fail to condemn influential Muslim leaders from around the globe when they misuse their positions and influence to make dangerously inflammatory statements about jihad in Iraq? The Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity (ISIC) is the educational arm of BARNABAS FUND. Please direct all general enquiries regarding Please direct all enquires regarding BARNABAS FUND to The Old Rectory, River Street, Pewsey, Wilts, SN9 5DB, UK Tel 01672 564938, Fax 01672 565030
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