Friday, November 21, 2014
Sheikh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi and 100 Moslem Scholars Issue Fatwa Letter Against ISIS Leader
Dear readers, I'm reversing the normal order of the blog today because the subject is not one I've been able to address before. I have occasionally asked why Moslems and Islam leaders don't speak out against the atrocities committed in the name of their religion. Well, today, I want to highlight a sunni scholar and cleric who is, and has been, speaking out against ISIS and the attacks of the Bashar al-Assad regime on the Syrian people. I heard him speak with Christiane Amanpour on CNN and then researched him on the Net. Here is what I found. ~~~~~ Sheikh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi, a world-renowned Syrian sunni cleric and scholar, has condemned the ISIS killing of the American Peter Abdul-Rahman Kassig and said ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi "is going to hell," adding : "We have to speak loud and very clear that Moslems and Islam have nothing to do with this." Sheikh al-Yaqoubi told CNN's Christiane Amanpour this week : "ISIS has no nationality. Its nationality is terror, savagery, and hatred." Al-Yaqoubi said that every Friday every Imam everywhere in the world who preaches should be saying that ISIS is not Islam and that ISIS followers may think they are martyrs but "they are going to hell as every Moslem knows." He recently signed a fatwa and letter to the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ( http://LetterToBaghdadi.com) affirming that it is a great sin for any Moslem to join ISIS. This letter has been co-signed by over 100 Moslem scholars. Al-Yaqoubi is recognized as an outspoken opponent of extremist groups and has called strongly for the protection of Christians and Yazudis. Al-Yaqoubi has also condemned the Jerusalem synagogue massacre, saying Islam forbids attacking places of worship. He also has spoken out against the killing of women, children and the elderly, again saying that these acts are forbidden by Islam. ~~~~~ Sheikh al-Yaqoubi has expressed his "deepest condolences" to Kassig's family, as well as to the families of the "many Syrians" who have been killed. Kassig converted to Islam in captivity; his parents now refer to him as Abdul-Rahman. Al-Yaqoubi led the prayers in Indiana today for Abdul-Rahman Kassig, whose parents, family and friends were present. ~~~~~ Sheikh Al-Yaqoubi was born in Damascus, Syria, in 1963. He comes from a family of Islamic scholars who have taught the Islamic sciences for centuries. His father, Ibrahim al-Yaqoubi (d. 1985) was a scholar. His paternal grandfather Ismail al-Yaqoubi (d. 1960) was a scholar and Sufi master. His father’s maternal uncle was Arabi al-Yaqoubi (d. 1965), and his paternal uncle was the Gnostic Sharif al-Yaqoubi (d. 1943). Among al-Yaqoubi’s predecessors, three have held the post of Maliki Imam at the Grand Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, and so has he. He is a descendant of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, tracing his lineage through Mawlay Idris al-Anwar, founder of the city of Fès, to Hasan ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet. Al-Yaqoubi was trained in Islamic law and scholarship, and Sufism, a deeply mystic version of Islam, by his father. He then studied at the Universities of Damascus and Beirut. He earned a Ph.D at Gotenberg University in Sweden and was then elected mufti of Sweden. In 2012, al-Yaqoubi was listed in "The 500 Most Influential Moslems" by Georgetown University’s Prince Alwaleed Bin-Talal Center for Moslem-Christian Understanding and the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre of Jordan. ~~~~~ In April 2011, Al-Yaqoubi became one of the first Ulama (Islamic scholars) to support the Syrian uprising and condemn the Syrian government’s response to peaceful demonstrations. Since the start of the Syrian uprising, al-Yaqoubi has campaigned internationally to provide humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees. In December 2012, he led a convoy for the delivery of “vast quantities of food, baby food and blankets” to displaced Syrians in Turkey. After he was exiled from Syria by President Bashar al-Assad in 2011, he has taken part in a sustained international effort to provide aid for the Syrian people. He has publically urged the international community to “implement help immediately” and to “lift the siege" on Syria.
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B R A V O - one is a start
ReplyDeleteal-Yaqoubi is a powerful voice in the Middle East. he has remained under the radar for some reason. Seldom ever mentioned or quoted by the West news sources. I never understood. His solutions may not favor the west 100%, but they just may favor the Muslim-Israeli conflicts.
DeletePopes are famous for speaking out against 'evil & wrongs' durning their rule. But they are well protected and for the most part isolated from citizenry contact and therefore risk little of themselves.
ReplyDeleteBut for 1 let alone 101 cleric who live and walk among the good and the bad of their Islamic community to step up toe to toe and call out pure evil is an act of bravery. These Fatwa should be herald and protected by the Islamic community.
Sheikh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi and his hundred fellow scholars should be praised by the world. But won't be. There lives are not worth much today. And the proof of that is only a few days old with the brutal murder in the Synagogue in Jerusalem.
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It is common place to hear the Pope call out public figures that are in disparity with the stance of the Catholic Church on a subject, running a-muck with a social cause, or just indifference with a religious issue. A few Pope’s have had had trouble in inching in on political issues lately. But I can’t remember a high ranking member of the Presbyterian Church, Baptist Church, etc., stepping up and announcing their Church position on a current question.
ReplyDeleteBut then comes a-long one Sheikh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi and 100 of his closest friends also religious scholars lambasting their fellow Moslem’s for being anywhere close to ISIS. This may seem like another day at the Mosque, but far from it.
Al-Yaqoubi and his 100 friends have put their lives in danger. Don’t believe that? Remember the ISIS attack on a Jewish temple in Jerusalem a couple days ago that left 3 American Rabbi’s brutally chopped to death. These Scholars have all demonstrated a very high level or accountability, responsibility, and bravery in signing this letter.
Sheikh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi is a very mysterious person. Before we go rushing into thinking he is the calming voice of the Islamic world, we need to observe for a while. Unless one wishes to fall prey to the old saying …”The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” But ‘the enemy of my enemy is my enemy’ is most likely more accurate in the Middle East. The Islamic Middle East is far too complicated and entangled for this approach to be useable. The West has had one failure after another in dealing with a society we know little about.
ReplyDeleteWhether the West likes it or not, many Syrian Muslims fighting the regime view the conflict in religious terms, invoking the banner of “jihad” to give their cause moral authority. However, jihad is an elusive concept, and thus using this language brings its own problems. In history, the declaration of jihad has depended on so many factors, including political power, geopolitics and local circumstances, that nailing down a precise definition is a serious undertaking. Historically, it has had many connotations: expansionist, defensive, pre-emptive, collective, and individual.
ReplyDeleteYaqoubi is a Syrian Sufi and a pedigreed scholar, having studied in Sweden and the UK. He is one of the few scholars who openly defied the Syrian regime by condemning it for killing demonstrators. Consequently, he fled the country after the regime tried to silence him. He is currently in exile in Morocco, helping to deliver humanitarian aid, and is in regular contact with Syrian fighters who consult him on the moral and spiritual issues raised by their struggle.
In an interview with The Majalla (Islamic magazinewith very wide circulation), Yaqoubi explained that jihad is primarily about defending the land when it is invaded by a foreign power. In the case of Syria, he says that “religion serves the purpose of defending the country and motivates fighters. The role of religion here is positive, as long as the main slogan of the war is defending the country or getting rid of oppression.” When The Majalla raised the issue of the risk that some jihadis might target minorities like the Alawites, Assyrians, Druze and other communities, Yaqoubi responded: “Up to now, there is no fear of a wide-spread sectarian conflict; people still listen to the voice of reason. The more the regime, Hezbollah and Iran kill Syrians the more hatred there will be.”
Complicated man Yaqoubi is. Is what he says factual or is it some Islamic phraseology intended to confuse???
al-Yaqoubi is known to some of us very well. To most including most the pundits and news readers he is a unknown quantity, just one more Cleric with not much important to say. Well don’t for a moment ever think that of al-Yaqoubi. Listen to him. You may not like what you hear but you will hear the facts polished by some scholarly words.
ReplyDeleteYaqoubi also rejects the propensity of some jihadist groups towards the act of takfir, or declaring someone an apostate. “The jihadis consider any government who rules by man-made laws a disbelieving [i.e. secular] government; the people who work for it and support and accept it and do not move to change are also disbelievers and apostates,” he explains. “According to them, they all deserve to die. This has been rejected by Muslims scholars and Institutions such as Al-Azhar in Egypt and Muftis around the world, but found fertile ground in the areas where the West intervened, such as Afghanistan.”
His plans for resolving the conflict in Syria are likewise ambitious. As well as an international registry of fighters and the creation of a kind of Arab or Islamic ‘Foreign Legion,’ he also emphasizes the need to create mechanisms for transitional justice during the conflict. “In fact, it is needed now more than ever, to prevent fake prosecutions and military tribunals which some military groups are holding against the regime’s affiliates,” he says. His solution lies in refocusing efforts on the FSA (Free Syrian Army), because “the FSA consists mainly of former soldiers and officers; they defected from the Syrian Army. They work for the best interest of the country. They are not lead by ideologies. They are motivated by the injustice inflicted on our people. The FSA will be, after the collapse of the regime, integrated in the Syrian Army.”
So after reading his thoughts in the above paragraph …is he a fixer, or is he himself creating a religious Islamic Foreign legion and if so, why so?
If you want to understand an uncomplicated voice of the Middle East read some of Kahlil Gibran works. A devote man of any religion he wasn't, but a religious person to a degree. But Gibran wrote with the flair and the double meaning of every word as a Cleric would.
ReplyDeleteal-Yaqoubi lives in the real world of Islam ... Gibran in the world that existed in his dreams and thoughts.