3 - 9 May 2001
Issue No.532
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 3 - 9 May 2001 Issue No.532 |
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The politics of fatwa
The Saudi Grand Mufti's fatwa against suicide bombings has triggered a hornet's nest. Nadia Abou El-Magd reports on the controversy
Suicide bombings are the most desperate of the few weapons Palestinians have in their struggle against a brutal, and immensely powerful occupation force. They are also one of the most telling. Israelis dread them. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres once said in exasperation: "No one can stop someone who decides to blow himself up." But now the legitimacy of that weapon has been questioned: by Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti.
Israelis consider those who blow themselves up terrorists. Palestinians think them martyrs. But the Saudi Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdallah Al-Sheikh, the highest religious authority in Saudi Arabia, is unsure. He fears the attacks could amount to committing suicide, an unforgivable sin in Islam.
"Jihad for God's sake is one of the best acts ( in Islam)", Al-Sheikh told the Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat last week, "but killing oneself in the midst of the enemy, or suicidal acts, I don't know whether this is endorsed by Shari'a (Islamic law) or whether it is considered Jihad for God. I'm afraid it could be suicide. Fighting to hurt the enemy is required but it should never violate Shari'a."
Hamas and Islamic Jihad have carried out several suicide bombings inside Israel since the Al-Aqsa Intifada started last September. More than 400 Palestinians and around 70 Israelis have been killed in the violence. Hamas announced recently that it had "100 human bombs" ready to die in order to kill Israelis.
Al-Sheikh's controversial view, considered a fatwa, caused an outcry among Muslim scholars and intellectuals. Sheikh Hamed Al-Midawi, preacher at Al-Aqsa mosque and chairman of the Legal Appeals Court in Jerusalem, was one of the first to object.
Abdel-Aziz Al-Rantisi, a leading Hamas figure in Gaza, also complained. He said that suicide bombers don't kill themselves because they are bored with life. They die as a means of killing their enemy, even if they kill themselves in the process.
The Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, was quoted by Sawt Al-Azhar, the mosque's mouthpiece, as saying: "The actions of martyrdom undertaken by the Palestinians are in self-defence and are a sort of martyrdom as long as they are intended to kill fighters, not women and children."
Al-Ahram columnist Fahmi Howeidy goes even further. He sees every Israeli as a legitimate target. "Every Israeli in Palestine is usurping something, including the air they breathe," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. According to him, there are no civilians in Israel. "They are either conscripts waiting to be drafted, or reserve soldiers on vacation," he said.
Youssef Al-Qaradawi, a prominent Islamic scholar, supported the attacks against "the Zionist enemy," on his internet website. He refused to call them suicides, and considered those who carry them out to be "the pioneer martyrs." Al-Qaradawi also endorsed the participation of Palestinian children in the Intifada, calling them "the black lion cubs." He described their stone throwing against the Israelis as "Jihad to be proud of."
Journalist Osama Ayoub wrote on Monday in the independent Al-Osbou' weekly that the Saudi "fatwa is catastrophic. We are facing a very serious and dangerous catastrophe, both religious and national." According to Ayoub, the fatwa could be held to apply to all those in the Intifada. They are confronting heavy Israeli weapons with their bodies, which could be a form of suicide. Ayoub fears "This fatwa could be used to bring the Intifada to a halt."
Howeidy disagrees. He does not think that the fatwa will end the Intifada or change the minds of activists, though he conceded that it may affect morale among ordinary people. "The battlefield is not ruled by these fatwas," said Howeidy. But such fatwas may have a negative influence on the stature of some scholars." Howeidy feels he knows what the Saudi sheikh is up to. "The Saudi Mufti was playing a political game, but he went wrong," he said.
Lawyer Montasser Al-Zayat, spokesman of the underground Gama'a Islamiya agreed. He said that the fatwa "reminds us of the fatwas issued by the Sultan in the old days. This fatwa wasn't issued on the basis of religious or legal evidence, but due to political inclination."
Nabil Abdel-Fattah, chief editor of the Report on the State of Religion in Egypt, also believes that the timing of the newspaper interview with the Saudi Mufti is political, and is more to do with Saudi Arabia than Palestine. Although the interview came at a time when suicide bombings are on the rise in Israel, "the Mufti's answer addressed a Saudi phenomenon, and is a message to the new American administration," he told the Weekly. "Al-Sheikh was addressing, and trying to prevent, the recurrence of the suicide bombings against American military targets in Saudi Arabia and the hijacking of Saudi planes."
The Saudi Mufti's opinion, it has been noted by several commentators, was expressed in response to a general question regarding suicide bombings, which did not refer to Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation.
"At a time of haphazard and contradictory fatwas, as well as the fatwas issued on Satellite Channels and on the Internet, the influence and credibility of the official fatwa institutions are being undermined," Abdel-Fattah added.
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