Moderate Muslims urge action against extremists

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia stated in a recent speech that Muslims cannot keep on remaining silent while other Muslims continue to cause harm to Islam.

Abu Dhabi’s Al-Ittihad newspaper followed up Monday with an opinion piece expanding on the king’s speech in an article titled “Who Is Harming Islam?”

The Emirates’ newspaper described Abdullah’s speech as a “scream” for action.

The Saudi monarch said it was no longer acceptable to “simply complain or condemn.” The time had come for action.

The king’s initiative is a welcome development, particularly coming from a monarch with the status and privilege Abdullah carries in the Muslim world.

Aside from his royal title, the Saudi king also holds the title of “custodian of the two holy mosques,” in reference to Islam’s first- and second-holiest sites, Mecca and Medina respectively. The third is the al-Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, in Jerusalem where the al-Aqsa Mosque and the renowned golden Dome of the Rock are located.

The author of the article suggested establishing a central global “fatwa institute” to combat the trend of independent fatwas, or religious edicts, that currently plague the Muslim world.

“Fatwa shops” is how the author of the article described it. Sunni Islam allows for almost anyone to issue a fatwa, which at times has had the unfortunate result of producing the most inane edicts.

The Sunni branch of Islam does not have a central figurehead. There is no equivalent to say, the Catholic Church’s pope, or grand ayatollahs found in Shi’ite Islam.

The closest Sunnis come to a central figure is the chief imam of Cairo’s al-Azhar University and mosque, Islam’s most prestigious center of higher religious education; and the custodian of the two holy mosques, the king of Saudi Arabia.

While there is something to be said for the truly democratic principle of all imams in the Sunni branch of Islam being equal, the downside is that it leaves the Koran, Islam’s holy book, and the Hadith, the sayings of the prophet Muhammad, open to individual interpretation. And of course, much as with the Bible and Torah, a verse can be understood or misunderstood, interpreted and misinterpreted in multiple different manners.

It is precisely this lack of a clear line of leadership that opens the door to confusion.

Last month Sheik Muhammad al-Munajid, a Saudi cleric who appears often on various television shows in the Arab world, issued a fatwa against Mickey Mouse, calling the famous Disney cartoon character and other mice, “agents of Satan.”

He said: “Shariah, or Islamic, law called for the extermination of all mice. That includes the common house mouse as well as the famous cartoon mouse.”

The same sheik earlier had issued a fatwa against the Beijing Summer Olympics, calling it the “Bikini Olympics,” and lashed out at the “immodest dress” worn by female athletes. He also is reported to have issued a fatwa banning women competing in the Olympics, an event he also labeled “satanic.”

Three years ago he called for a ban on soccer, the most popular sport on the planet, because he objected to the shorts worn by the athletes, saying they “reveal nakedness.”

Indeed, part of the problem with those religious edicts is that just about anyone can issue them. The author of the Ittihad newspaper columns wrote: “It is one thing to protest a government’s policies, but to randomly kill in the name of religion is something that cannot be justified.”

The author concluded that Muslims must unite their efforts to disrupt those committing terrorist acts in the name of Islam because “no religion has been harmed more by terrorism and extremism than Islam.”

Indeed, Islamist terrorists have killed more Muslims than non-Muslims in bombings and suicide bombings.

The author of the article called for action from Muslim groups in conjunction with the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), describing the grouping as one “hampered by bureaucracy.”

He begrudged the OIC for delaying a plan that was meant to develop an ideological strategy outlining steps on how to combat extremism. This plan was meant to be advanced five years ago. It is yet to be introduced.

Meanwhile, the OIC secretary-general, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, issued a statement last week condemning terrorism and calling for greater tolerance among Muslims.

In what was described as the strongest language to date, Mr. Ihsanoglu issued a call to Muslims worldwide to “unite against all forms of terrorism,” according to a U.S. State Department report on terrorism.

The OIC secretary-general said terrorism “distorts the image of Islam as a religion of peace, compassion, and tolerance.” He decried the “heinous crimes” against innocents, such as the Islamabad and Sana’a bombings, which “violated the serenity of the holy month and sanctity of human life.”

Mr. Ihsanoglu called the acts “atrocious sins” that violate Islamic principles, and must be vehemently condemned, while their commission during Ramadan made them even more barbaric. He reiterated the OIC’s “steady position” of condemning all forms of terrorism, “irrespective of justification or motivation.”

The organization’s chief affirmed “unyielding determination” by his organization to bring the perpetrators to justice and “to combat this scourge by all means, in cooperation with the international community.”

Muslims and non-Muslims need to hear more of that dialogue.

Claude Salhani is editor of the Middle East Times.