Fatwa
While more than three years overdue, the decision by the Fiqh Council of North America to issue a fatwa condemning terrorism — to be released at a news conference later today in Washington, DC – is welcome news.
As the Washington Post’s Caryle Murphy explains, this “organization of top American Muslim religious scholars plans to issue a formal ruling today condemning terrorism and forbidding Muslims to cooperate with anyone involved in a terrorist act . . . . The one-page ruling, or fatwa, will be issued by the Fiqh Council of North America, an association of Islamic legal scholars that interprets Islamic law for the Muslim community. Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group, said the ruling does not represent a new position on terrorism.
“Rather, Hooper said, ‘it is another way to drive home the point that the American Muslim community rejects terrorism and extremism.’”
Others, however, have emphasized that there is a substantial difference between the present measure and previous, sometimes pro forma condemnations. “Louay Safi of the Islamic Society of North America noted that there is an important difference between a fatwa and previous statements from the Muslim community. The fatwa ‘is not a political statement. It’s a legal or religious opinion by a recognized religious authority in the United States’ . . . . Safi, who heads the society’s Leadership Development Center, said yesterday that ‘the statement prohibits Muslims from giving any support to terrorist groups who have carried out attacks against unarmed civilians. Groups like al Qaeda have misused and abused Islam to fit their own radical and criminal agenda, and . . . the statement is an important step to repudiating such groups.’”
According to Hooper, the issuance of the fatwa “was prompted by the condemnation of terrorism in a similar ruling from the Muslim Council of Britain after the July 7 terrorist attacks in London.”
While the London bombings may indeed be the precipitating event, it is clear that global trends are beginning to shift decisively against Al Qaeda and its FascIslamic allies. As we discussed earlier in “Breeding Ground 1”, on Bastille Day the Pew Global Attitudes Project released a global survey entitled “Islamic Extremism: Common Concern for Muslim and Western Publics” and subtitled “Support for Terror Wanes Among Muslim Publics”. The substance of this report has, as you would expect, been largely ignored by the “mainstream” media. But a few acute observers have begun to explore its significant ramifications. In yesterday’s Los Angeles Times Max Boot reiterated much of what we had noted earlier:
“The public opinion poll was conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, hardly a bastion of neocon zealotry. (It’s co-chaired by Madeleine Albright.) Over the last three years, Pew surveys have charted surging anti-Americanism in response to the invasion of Iraq and other actions of the Bush administration. But its most recent poll — conducted in May, with 17,000 respondents in 17 countries — also found evidence that widespread antipathy is abating.
“The percentage of people holding a favorable impression of the United States increased in Indonesia (+23 points), Lebanon (+15), Pakistan (+2) and Jordan (+16). It also went up in such non-Muslim nations as France, Germany, Russia and India.
“What accounts for this shift? The answer varies by country, but analysts point to waning public anger over the invasion of Iraq, gratitude for the massive U.S. tsunami relief effort and growing conviction that the U.S. is serious about promoting democracy.
“There is also increasing aversion to America’s enemies, even in the Islamic world. The Pew poll found that ‘nearly three-quarters of Moroccans and roughly half of those in Pakistan, Turkey and Indonesia see Islamic extremism as a threat to their countries.’
“Support for suicide bombing has declined dramatically in all the Muslim countries surveyed except Jordan, with its large anti-Israeli Palestinian population. The number of those saying that ‘violence against civilian targets is sometimes or often justified’ has dropped by big margins in Lebanon (-34 points) and Indonesia (-12) since 2002, and in the last year in Pakistan (-16) and Morocco (-27).
“This has been accompanied by a cratering of support for Osama bin Laden everywhere except (unfortunately) Pakistan and Jordan. Since 2003, approval ratings for the world’s No. 1 terrorist have slid in Indonesia (-23 points), Morocco (-23), Turkey (-8) and Lebanon (-12).”
As Boot observes, more and more Muslims are beginning to understand the extraordinary stake that they themselves have in this global war. “What accounts for this decline? Primarily the actions of the terrorists themselves. Since 9/11, most of the atrocities carried out by Islamist groups have occurred in Muslim nations — the latest examples are the bombings in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, and bombings too numerous to mention in Iraq — and most of the victims have been Muslims. Not surprisingly, this hasn’t endeared the jihadists to a lot of their coreligionists.
“Yet even attacks on the West no longer win knee-jerk approval in the Muslim world. After the 7/7 London bombings, Islamic groups and intellectuals who have seldom had a cross word for suicide bombings were pretty unequivocal in their condemnation.
“To cite only one example of many, Jihad Al Khazen, a rabidly anti-American and anti-Israeli columnist for the Arabic daily Al-Hayat, wrote that ‘the Arabs and Muslims must help the U.S.’ in the war on terror. There are still plenty of Muslims who blame the victims for bringing terrorism upon themselves, but there is also a growing countervailing attitude.”
This countervailing attitude brings Islamic attitudes into accord with American strategy, as “Muslim opinion also challenges jihadist orthodoxy that proclaims that giving power to the people, rather than to mullahs, is ‘un-Islamic.’ The latest Pew poll found ‘large and growing majorities in Morocco (83%), Lebanon (83%), Jordan (80%) and Indonesia (77%) — as well as pluralities in Turkey (48%) and Pakistan (43%) — [that] say democracy can work well and is not just for the West.’
“That’s exactly what President Bush has been saying. Though his actions and rhetoric have been denounced as ‘unrealistic’ and ‘extremist’ by his American and European critics, it turns out that Muslims welcome it. ‘Roughly half of respondents in Jordan and nearly two-thirds of Indonesians think the U.S. favors democracy in their countries,’ the new Pew study said. ‘About half of the public in Lebanon also takes that view.’ Imagine that: Bush’s actions might actually be making Middle Easterners more pro-American!”
Today’s fatwa is just one more datum among the accumulating evidence that we are beginning to “win the hearts and minds” of Islamic peoples throughout the world.
If we persevere, we will win this war, and FascIslam will be consigned to the graveyard of defunct ideologies alongside its progenitors Communism, Fascism and National Socialism, where it belongs.
Update:
Perhaps I should also note another article addressing similar concerns which appeared in the Tuesday Christian Science Monitor. In “Terror Shifts Muslim Views”, Dan Murphy offers a variety of examples of the global shift underway. Domestically, he mentions that “in a talk given in Los Angeles last Friday by Maher Hathout, a senior adviser to the US Muslim Public Affairs Council, an organization opposed the US invasion of Iraq, he condemned suicide bombings. He spoke of a ‘perversion’ of Islam as having affected the men who attacked London. ‘Somehow, some person [made] them swallow the bait that transformed them into [being] willing to blow themselves up and take with them innocent lives that God created,’ he said. ‘So many hearts that were supposed to be opened are closed; so many minds that could have been guided by the light of Islam have been confused.’”
Similarly, he describes two events abroad. First, “on Sunday, about 1,000 Egyptians, mostly hotel workers, marched through Sharm el-Sheikh, where a weekend bombing killed scores of people, chanting: ‘There is no God but God; terrorism is the enemy of God.’” Meanwhile, “in Pakistan, an Islamist call for nationwide protests against a crackdown on militants fell flat Friday with rallies drawing just a few hundred people.”
As the Washington Post’s Caryle Murphy explains, this “organization of top American Muslim religious scholars plans to issue a formal ruling today condemning terrorism and forbidding Muslims to cooperate with anyone involved in a terrorist act . . . . The one-page ruling, or fatwa, will be issued by the Fiqh Council of North America, an association of Islamic legal scholars that interprets Islamic law for the Muslim community. Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group, said the ruling does not represent a new position on terrorism.
“Rather, Hooper said, ‘it is another way to drive home the point that the American Muslim community rejects terrorism and extremism.’”
Others, however, have emphasized that there is a substantial difference between the present measure and previous, sometimes pro forma condemnations. “Louay Safi of the Islamic Society of North America noted that there is an important difference between a fatwa and previous statements from the Muslim community. The fatwa ‘is not a political statement. It’s a legal or religious opinion by a recognized religious authority in the United States’ . . . . Safi, who heads the society’s Leadership Development Center, said yesterday that ‘the statement prohibits Muslims from giving any support to terrorist groups who have carried out attacks against unarmed civilians. Groups like al Qaeda have misused and abused Islam to fit their own radical and criminal agenda, and . . . the statement is an important step to repudiating such groups.’”
According to Hooper, the issuance of the fatwa “was prompted by the condemnation of terrorism in a similar ruling from the Muslim Council of Britain after the July 7 terrorist attacks in London.”
While the London bombings may indeed be the precipitating event, it is clear that global trends are beginning to shift decisively against Al Qaeda and its FascIslamic allies. As we discussed earlier in “Breeding Ground 1”, on Bastille Day the Pew Global Attitudes Project released a global survey entitled “Islamic Extremism: Common Concern for Muslim and Western Publics” and subtitled “Support for Terror Wanes Among Muslim Publics”. The substance of this report has, as you would expect, been largely ignored by the “mainstream” media. But a few acute observers have begun to explore its significant ramifications. In yesterday’s Los Angeles Times Max Boot reiterated much of what we had noted earlier:
“The public opinion poll was conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, hardly a bastion of neocon zealotry. (It’s co-chaired by Madeleine Albright.) Over the last three years, Pew surveys have charted surging anti-Americanism in response to the invasion of Iraq and other actions of the Bush administration. But its most recent poll — conducted in May, with 17,000 respondents in 17 countries — also found evidence that widespread antipathy is abating.
“The percentage of people holding a favorable impression of the United States increased in Indonesia (+23 points), Lebanon (+15), Pakistan (+2) and Jordan (+16). It also went up in such non-Muslim nations as France, Germany, Russia and India.
“What accounts for this shift? The answer varies by country, but analysts point to waning public anger over the invasion of Iraq, gratitude for the massive U.S. tsunami relief effort and growing conviction that the U.S. is serious about promoting democracy.
“There is also increasing aversion to America’s enemies, even in the Islamic world. The Pew poll found that ‘nearly three-quarters of Moroccans and roughly half of those in Pakistan, Turkey and Indonesia see Islamic extremism as a threat to their countries.’
“Support for suicide bombing has declined dramatically in all the Muslim countries surveyed except Jordan, with its large anti-Israeli Palestinian population. The number of those saying that ‘violence against civilian targets is sometimes or often justified’ has dropped by big margins in Lebanon (-34 points) and Indonesia (-12) since 2002, and in the last year in Pakistan (-16) and Morocco (-27).
“This has been accompanied by a cratering of support for Osama bin Laden everywhere except (unfortunately) Pakistan and Jordan. Since 2003, approval ratings for the world’s No. 1 terrorist have slid in Indonesia (-23 points), Morocco (-23), Turkey (-8) and Lebanon (-12).”
As Boot observes, more and more Muslims are beginning to understand the extraordinary stake that they themselves have in this global war. “What accounts for this decline? Primarily the actions of the terrorists themselves. Since 9/11, most of the atrocities carried out by Islamist groups have occurred in Muslim nations — the latest examples are the bombings in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, and bombings too numerous to mention in Iraq — and most of the victims have been Muslims. Not surprisingly, this hasn’t endeared the jihadists to a lot of their coreligionists.
“Yet even attacks on the West no longer win knee-jerk approval in the Muslim world. After the 7/7 London bombings, Islamic groups and intellectuals who have seldom had a cross word for suicide bombings were pretty unequivocal in their condemnation.
“To cite only one example of many, Jihad Al Khazen, a rabidly anti-American and anti-Israeli columnist for the Arabic daily Al-Hayat, wrote that ‘the Arabs and Muslims must help the U.S.’ in the war on terror. There are still plenty of Muslims who blame the victims for bringing terrorism upon themselves, but there is also a growing countervailing attitude.”
This countervailing attitude brings Islamic attitudes into accord with American strategy, as “Muslim opinion also challenges jihadist orthodoxy that proclaims that giving power to the people, rather than to mullahs, is ‘un-Islamic.’ The latest Pew poll found ‘large and growing majorities in Morocco (83%), Lebanon (83%), Jordan (80%) and Indonesia (77%) — as well as pluralities in Turkey (48%) and Pakistan (43%) — [that] say democracy can work well and is not just for the West.’
“That’s exactly what President Bush has been saying. Though his actions and rhetoric have been denounced as ‘unrealistic’ and ‘extremist’ by his American and European critics, it turns out that Muslims welcome it. ‘Roughly half of respondents in Jordan and nearly two-thirds of Indonesians think the U.S. favors democracy in their countries,’ the new Pew study said. ‘About half of the public in Lebanon also takes that view.’ Imagine that: Bush’s actions might actually be making Middle Easterners more pro-American!”
Today’s fatwa is just one more datum among the accumulating evidence that we are beginning to “win the hearts and minds” of Islamic peoples throughout the world.
If we persevere, we will win this war, and FascIslam will be consigned to the graveyard of defunct ideologies alongside its progenitors Communism, Fascism and National Socialism, where it belongs.
Update:
Perhaps I should also note another article addressing similar concerns which appeared in the Tuesday Christian Science Monitor. In “Terror Shifts Muslim Views”, Dan Murphy offers a variety of examples of the global shift underway. Domestically, he mentions that “in a talk given in Los Angeles last Friday by Maher Hathout, a senior adviser to the US Muslim Public Affairs Council, an organization opposed the US invasion of Iraq, he condemned suicide bombings. He spoke of a ‘perversion’ of Islam as having affected the men who attacked London. ‘Somehow, some person [made] them swallow the bait that transformed them into [being] willing to blow themselves up and take with them innocent lives that God created,’ he said. ‘So many hearts that were supposed to be opened are closed; so many minds that could have been guided by the light of Islam have been confused.’”
Similarly, he describes two events abroad. First, “on Sunday, about 1,000 Egyptians, mostly hotel workers, marched through Sharm el-Sheikh, where a weekend bombing killed scores of people, chanting: ‘There is no God but God; terrorism is the enemy of God.’” Meanwhile, “in Pakistan, an Islamist call for nationwide protests against a crackdown on militants fell flat Friday with rallies drawing just a few hundred people.”
posted by Ken at 7:04 AM
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