Monday, January 11, 2010

Good News: Imams Issue Fatwa Against Terrorists. Now The Bad News...

First of all, this fatwa is very specific on where its directed:
Twenty imams have issued a “fatwa” against any Muslim who would attempt to commit an act of terrorism in Canada or the United States.


Syed Soharwardy, an imam at the Al-Madinah Calgary Islamic Centre, who organized the initiative, said on Friday that any attack by foreign elements should also be considered a direct affront to the 10 million Muslims who call either Canada or the United States home.

“We want Muslims around the world who would dare to commit terrorism on our soil to know that we stand together with all Canadians and Americans.
So this fatwa is does not cover, let's say, Great Britain--let alone the Middle East.

Oh, and one other thing:
Nineteen Canadian imams and one American have signed the fatwa to date.
Seriously, is there any reason why in the US there is only one imam who is willing to sign such a fatwa? And if so--why?

The idea behind this is a good one, and it would be great to see an initiative like this spread to other countries.
But it would be a lot more effective if they could actually find the imams--outside of Canada--to sign it.

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6 comments:

NormanF said...

I would say the fatwa does not not renounce jihad... considered obligatory by Muslims. What Westerners consider "terrorism," Muslims would call it "jihad." The fact only eighteen imams would sign such a declaration tells us more about how Muslims view their place in the West than it does about their willingness to revisit the war upon all infidels prescription in the Koran.

Daled Amos said...

In the past, CAIR has condemned "terrorism" while refusing to mention Hamas and Hizbollah by name.

It could very well be, as you say, that here they are condemning 'terrorism' while making a distinction between that and actual jihad.

I don't know.

Thermblog said...

No way are there 10m Muslims in the USA and Canada. I mention it because these sort of fabrications seem to just appear in the ether without question.

Soharwardy is the guy that had the run-in with Ezra Levant; he's not a decent chap.

Daled Amos said...

Thermblog,

You're right, of course. I blogged about the Pew survey back in 2007 that found there were about 2.35 million Muslims in the US.

I was not focusing on that issue and missed the error in the article.

Thank you for pointing it out.

Neshobanakni said...

Only one American imam signed on to it because the other imam moved to Yemen.

Daled Amos said...

Do you have a source for that? In the case of the 'flying imams' alone there were 6 imams removed from the plane in Minnesota.

According to this article, there are about a dozen imams in the US armed forces alone.