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Some good news from Al Jazeera:

Stop Terror Sheikhs, Muslim Academics Demand

JEDDAH/NEW YORK, 30 October 2004 — Over 2,500 Muslim intellectuals from 23 countries have signed a petition to the United Nations calling for an international treaty to ban the use of religion for incitement to violence.

It also calls on the Security Council to set up a tribunal to try “the theologians of terror.” The petition is addressed to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and to all members of the Security Council and its current chairman.

“There are individuals in the Muslim world who pose as clerics and issue death sentences against those they disagree with,” says Shakir Al-Nablusi, a Jordanian academic and one of the signatories. “These individuals give Islam a bad name and foster hatred among civilizations.”

Nablusi said hundreds of Arab writers and academics were collecting more signatures and hope to have “tens of thousands” by next month. Among those collecting signatures are Jawad Hashem, a former Iraqi minister of planning, and Alafif Al-Akdhar, a leading Tunisian writer and academic. Most of the signatories are from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states plus Iraq, Jordan and Palestine.

The signatories describe those who use religion for inciting violence as “the sheikhs of death”. Among those mentioned by name is Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian preacher working in Qatar. The signatories accuse him of “providing a religious cover for terrorism.”

Last year Qaradawi raised a storm when he issued a fatwa allowing the killing of Israeli pregnant women and their unborn babies on the ground that the babies could grow up to join the Israeli Army. Last September, Qaradawi in a fatwa in response to a question from the Egyptian Union of Journalists said killing “all Americans, civilian or military” in Iraq was allowed.

“We cannot let such dangerous nonsense to pass as Islam,” Nablusi says.

The petition also names the late Egyptian preacher Muhammad Al-Ghazzali who, in 1992, issued a fatwa for the murder of Farag Foda, an anti-clerical writer in Cairo. Within weeks of the fatwa, zealots murdered Foda in his home.

Other “sheikhs of death” mentioned include the Yemeni Abdul-Majid Al-Zendani, and the Saudis Ali bin Khudhair Al-Khudhair and Safar Al-Hawali. The two Saudis have described the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against the United States as “retaliations”, and thus justified under Islamic law.

Issuing murder fatwas has a long story.

In 1947 the late Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Ahmad Kasravi, one of Iran’s most prominent lawyers. A few weeks later, six men stabbed Kasravi to death in a court of law. In 1951 a group of mullas issued a fatwa for the murder of Iran’s Prime Minister Haji-Ali Razmara. He was shot dead a few days later. In 1989 Khomeini issued a fatwa for the murder of the British novelist Salman Rushdie.

The signatories of the petition also want the UN to order its member states to stop broadcasting the “mad musings of the theologians of terror.”

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3 monkeys sitting under a coconut tree
discussing things as they are set to be
Said one to the other, now listen you two
there's a strange rumor that can't be true
they say man was descended from our noble race
but the very idea is a big disgrace
no monkey ever deserted his wife
or her baby to ruin their lives.
Damian Marley - Educated Fools

 

HappyMan

Cool,
but it raises some questions of freedom of speech...

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MickityMike

I think this is most excellent. In a war primarily of ideas and between the liberal and fundamentalist schools of Islam, this is the kind of thing we want to see.

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I'd be delighted to live in a country where happily married gay couples had closets full of assault weapons. - Glenn Reynolds

solutions

How's a fatwa freedom of speech?

Great that such a large group gathers and singles out a few clerics who have some serious questions to answer.

I recon the Dutch will be much obliged to set up a court, they can keep Milosevic company.

MickityMike

I'm curious, solutions: What do you determine to be Europe's resolve regarding the Global War on Terror? Weak, strong, increasing, decreasing... what?

 

solutions

heh, define "Europe" .....

I think we're still talking about it

Expect more Bush-hugging from the Dutch at least, the Cabinet has now formally declared war on islamic fundamentalism, whatever that may mean.

The biggest challenge at the moment is avoiding civil war breaking out, there have been attacks on several mosques the last few days, arsons and tonight an explosion at an Eindhoven mosque.

As for the EU, there are some developments, slowly of course, like forming several multi-national EU battle groups of 1,500 men each. There's increased cooperation between intelligence services (after Madrid) and of course there's diplomatical pressure on rogue states like Iran (don't laugh)

Perhaps the most interesting opportunity is Turkey's possible accession to the EU. There is quite some popular opposition to the accession, with countries like France promising a referendum on the issue it could go either way. Next month the heads of state will decide on starting negotiations or not. Queen Beatrix - officially apolitical, but hardly without influence - made a speech before the EU parliament a few weeks back that was interpreted as support for Turkey's bid: