A battle for the soul of Islam

Grand mufti: Jordanian pilot's murder not part of Islam.
The actions of the Islamic State are anything but Islamic, and Muslims must battle extremism to maintain the religion's message of mercy, the grand mufti of Egypt.

Sheikh Shawki Ibrahim Abdel-Karim Allam spoke about the recent execution of a Jordanian pilot at the hands of ISIS. Lt. Moath al-Kasasbeh, 27, was burned alive while confined in a cage.

"What happened to the Jordanian pilot is by all means a crime. This barbaric action is far away from humanity, much less religions. Islam is innocent of this act," the grand mufti said on Thursday.

Allam leads Dar El-Ifta, or the House of Fatwas, the premier authority in Islamic legal interpretations. The institution was founded in 1895, although the grand muftis of Egypt have been interpreting Islam for 800 years. It releases more than 500,000 edicts a year.

The battle is ideological, Allam said, and the fight is not confined to Egypt or the Middle East.

"Violence and radicalization have become an international phenomenon that has no home or belief. But it runs through the entire world," he said.

Can beheadings ever be justified?
The pilot's death was captured in a horrific video that was posted online this week.

ISIS has distributed footage of its executions before, but previous videos showed beheadings.

The grand mufti weighed whether beheadings could ever be justified by Islam.

He considered the example of Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally in the region. There, defendants may be sentenced to death and beheaded.

"What happens in Saudi Arabia is based on judicial investigations and implementing the predominant law. If it is the case, then we respect the rule of law in this state," Allam said.

By contrast, he argued, ISIS does not follow any system of investigation.

"Everything ISIS does is far away from Islam. What it is doing is a crime by all means," the grand mufti said.

Tradition versus reform
Earlier this year, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi called for a "religious revolution."

Allam believes in the need for reform, but he also believes the foundation of Islam must remain untouched.

What does this mean?

It means "renewing the methods, renewing the tools, and renewing the way Islam's teachings are presented, " Allam said. "At the same time, we preserve and uphold the stable pillars of religion. Rattling the pillars leads to destabilizing communities."

In an effort to reclaim the voice of Islam from radical groups, Dar Al-Ifta issues publications in 10 languages, engages in awareness campaigns and joins regional and international efforts to battle extremist ideas and to present a better image of Islam.

The grand mufti's advice to young Muslims is to seek specialized scholars to understand the true meaning of Islam.

"We tell youth, Islam didn't carry a message of sabotage and destruction. It only came to serve humanity, to achieve world peace and bring mercy to the world," he said.
A battle for the soul of Islam
by Ian Lee and Sarah El Sirgany, edition.cnn.com
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/05/world/egypt-grand-mufti-interview/

Talks with TTP mean talks with LeJ,

While an All Parties Conference has supported talks with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, the security establishment believes that holding a dialogue with the TTP would be like negotiating with the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) since there was barely any difference between the two al-Qaeda-linked groups.

They believe the two jointly plan and carry out terror strikes across Pakistan in pursuance of their common agenda — targeting the state of Pakistan and making it surrender to their whims and wishes.

A majority of mainstream parties attending the All Parties Conference (APC) organised by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) asked the government through a resolution to respond positively to the Taliban’s talks offer. But intriguingly enough, the APC resolution didn’t even ask the Taliban to lay down arms and renounce militancy.

On the other hand, the TTP chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, had already made it clear while extending his offer of talks in a video message: “We are willing to negotiate with the government but would not disarm.”

Well-placed sources in the security establishment say the February 28 APC was more of an attempt on part of Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Nawaz Sharif and Munawar Hassan to appease the TTP leadership which had named them as guarantors of the proposed peace talks while expressing no-confidence in the Pakistan Army.

In fact, Fazlur Rehman’s APC has overshadowed the Awami National Party’s February 14 APC in Islamabad which had resolved that attaining peace through talks should be the first priority but there will be no dialogue until and unless the Taliban lay down arms, renounce militancy and accept the supremacy of the state to show their seriousness in talks. Significantly, the 157th Corps Commanders’ conference that was also held on February 14 in Rawalpindi reportedly rejected any unconditional talks with the Taliban, as the participants argued that conceding to their demands without making them surrender would amount to admitting the defeat of the state against the al-Qaeda-linked extremists.

The security establishment is at pains to point out that the TTP has been making peace offers to the government ever since the army has revised its doctrine and declared the internal threat (from the Taliban) as the biggest threat to national security — bigger than India. Many key political leaders at JUI-F’s APC, especially Nawaz Sharif, backed talks with the Taliban and argued that if the US could talk to the Taliban in Afghanistan, why Pakistan couldn’t talk to the TTP. But according to the Khaki circles, the politicians simply ignore the hard fact that the Afghan Taliban are a political movement which had governed Afghanistan and that is still trying to fight out the ‘foreign occupation forces’ to get hold of the government in Kabul once again. On the other hand, the Khaki circles point out that the Pakistani Taliban are al-Qaeda-linked non-state actors; they neither recognise the territorial boundaries of Pakistan nor its government; they have waged an open war against the state of Pakistan and are fighting against the Pakistani security forces.

Even otherwise, the security establishment pleads, the government will have no moral justification to hold talks with the TTP when it has already ordered a major crackdown against the LeJ, which is an integral and most lethal module of the TTP. The crackdown was ordered in the wake of the brutal massacre of Shia Hazaras in Quetta, with Interior Minister Rehman Malik stating on February 24 in the federal capital that the TTP and LeJ have known links with each other. The TTP has its roots in anti-Shia violence in Pakistan and the LeJ had acted as the training ground for its chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, who is extremely sectarian and has a violently anti-Shia agenda.

As with most Sunni sectarian and militant groups, almost the entire LeJ leadership is made up of people who have fought in Afghanistan and most of its cadre strength has been drawn from Deobandi madrassas in Pakistan. Pakistani intelligence findings show that al-Qaeda has been involved with training of LeJ members, many of whom had also fought together with the Taliban against the Northern Alliance troops in Afghanistan. The LeJ was long al-Qaeda’s principal ally, even years before the emergence of the Pakistani Taliban phenomenon. After the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, the LeJ returned to Pakistan’s tribal areas along with its al-Qaeda allies and assisted in their relocation to Pakistan.

The LeJ militants later sought to exploit the 2003 Pakistani military operation in South Waziristan to convince the Pashtun tribal Jihadi elements in the northwestern Pakistan to join forces and rebel against the state of Pakistan. This culminated in the birth of the TTP in 2005 and the subsequent insurgency against the state that began in 2006, with LeJ serving as a significant nexus between al-Qaeda and the TTP. The Punjabi militants of LeJ, who were an essential segment within the Punjabi Taliban landscape, actually played a significant role in founding the TTP, with key TTP leaders and associates of Baitullhah Mehsud coming from the LeJ, especially Hakimullah Mehsud, Qari Hussain Mehsud, Mattiur Rehman, etc.

Both the LeJ and TTP are anti-Shia and anti-US and they employ similar tactics — mainly suicide bombings and fidayeen attacks — to achieve their targets. Their motives and objectives are also the same — targeting the state institutions, law enforcement agencies, secular liberal political leadership, the Shia community as well as the Western interests in Pakistan. Both the groups are al-Qaeda-linked and have jointly launched numerous terrorist attacks against the Pakistani military installations while using highly-trained al-Qaeda militants from Central Asia and Middle East.

Like the TTP, the LeJ has not only been implicated in terrorist attacks in Pakistan, it has been found involved in conducting terrorist operations across the border in Afghanistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai had accused the LeJ (on December 7, 2011) of having carried out the massacre of over 55 Shias in Afghanistan on the 10th of Muharram. His claim was eventually confirmed by none other than the LeJ by claiming responsibility of the attack.

Some of the major coordinated terrorist attacks jointly carried out by the TTP and LeJ in Pakistan include the December 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi (claimed by al-Qaeda, saying the operation was carried out by LeJ men); the September 2008 suicide attack that destroyed Marriott Hotel in Islamabad (meant to avenge the death of TTP founder Baitullah Mehsud); the May 2009 fidayeen attack on the General Headquarters of the Pakistan Army (with the ring leader being an LeJ militant Aqeel alias Usman); the March 2009 attempt to hijack a bus in Lahore carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team (to seek the release of the LeJ’s Malik Ishaq); the March 2010 twin suicide bombing targeting the ISI offices in Lahore (to avenge the death of LeJ’s Qari Zafar); the May 2011 fidayeen attack on the PNS Mehran naval base in Karachi (which destroyed two surveillance aircraft and killed 15 security forces men); the August 2012 fidayeen attack on Kamra Air Base (which destroyed a Saab-2000 aircraft fitted with an Airborne Early Warning system); and the December 2012 fidayeen attack on a PAF Base inside the Bacha Khan International Airport in Peshawar (which killed five security forces personnel).

http://images.thenews.com.pk/02-03-2013/ethenews/t-21315.htm

TTP Mindset تکفیری طالبان کیا سوچ رہے ہیں

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Attack on Malala Yousufzai by Takfiri Taliban and educating girls

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=363385143749640

ملالہ یوسف زئی پر حملہ غیراسلامی اور غیر شرعی فعل ہے، علماء کا فتویٰ

لاہور … سنی اتحاد کونسل کے 50 سے زائد مفتیان کرام نے فتویٰ دیاہے کہ ملالہ یوسف زئی پر حملہ غیر اسلامی اور غیر شرعی فعل ہے، حملہ کرنے والوں کی خود ساختہ تعبیر اسلام ، شریعت سے متصادم ہے اور حملہ کرنے والے دہشت گردوں کا فہمِ اسلام گمراہی اور جہالت پر مبنی ہے۔ لاہور سے جاری فتویٰ میں کہا گیا ہے کہ اسلام عورتوں کو تعلیم سے منع نہیں کرتا، بلکہ ہر مرد اور عورت کیلئے دین اور دنیا کا علم حاصل کرنا لازمی قرار دیا ہے۔ مفتیانِ کرام کا کہنا ہے کہ نبی کریم ﷺ نے ایک مومن مسلمان کی جان اور مال کی حرمت کو کعبہ کی حرمت سے زیادہ اہم قرار دیا، اسلام ایک بے گناہ کے قتل کو ساری انسانیت کے قتل کے مترادف قرار دیتا ہے۔ انہوں نے قرار دیا کہ امریکا کے ساتھ تعاون بھی غیر اسلامی عمل ہے اور دہشت گردی کی ہر کارروائی قبول کرلینے والے دراصل امریکا کے تنخواہ دار ایجنٹ ہیں۔ مفتیان نے قوم سے اپیل کی کہ اسلام کا صحیح فلسفہ دنیا کے سامنے پیش کریں تاکہ اسلام، مسلمانوں، داڑھی اور پگڑی کو بدنام ہونے سے بچایا جا سکے ۔

Read: Illogical Logic غیر منطقی منطق of Takfiri Taliban to kill innocent people in Pakistan- Refuted

Today, Pakistan is in an uproar over the targeted shooting of 14-year-old Malala Yousufzai by the Taliban. The Taliban, quick to claim responsibility for the attack, called her advocacy for the education of children, and particularly that of girls, in Swat an “obscenity”, warning the rest of Pakistan to not follow in her footsteps: “let this be a lesson”. With this tragic incident, Pakistan is at a crossroads in the war for its future. The two paths in front of the country are clear. It can tumble down the route of Afghanistan or take the long and uphill route to becoming a relatively peaceful and prosperous country.

Facing the Taliban takeover of Swat in 2009, 11-year-old Malala took on her shoulders the responsibility of a country and did what the Pakistani government did not have the courage to do — she stood up for her basic human rights. Today, as she fights for her life on a hospital bed in Peshawar, pictures of her heartbreakingly innocent face cover the pages of newspapers and the screens of social and news media across Pakistan, finally uniting a country against its real enemy: the Taliban. The Pakistani government, military and opposition parties are, in a rare show of unity, unequivocally denouncing the attack, for once on the same page as the civil society, which has also forcefully and bravely stepped out into the streets.

This public outrage offers a glimmer of hope. Pakistan has taken a tiny step on the difficult path towards reclaiming its identity as a moderate country. In the short term, the government needs to step up and seize the opportunity in front of it and finally take decisive action against the Taliban. Hunt down Malala’s attackers and the perpetrators of countless previous atrocities, try them quickly and if they are convicted, ensure they never see the light of day again. It will take a combined effort by the government, the judiciary, the police and the military, all of whom will have to get past their fractious history — a very tall order by any stretch. But there is nothing more important — the very existence of Pakistan and the basic human rights of its citizens are at stake. However, this is a short-term fix.

The long-term solution to rooting out radicalisation and militancy lies in the very thing which so threatens the Taliban: girls’ education. While a great deal of empirical evidence from around the world demonstrates that investments in female education give huge dividends in terms of economic, educational and health advancements, my recent research establishes that the education of girls also makes them less supportive of terrorism and militancy. Specifically, I used data from a recent, large-scale public opinion survey in Pakistan to show that while uneducated women exhibit higher support for militancy relative to uneducated men, educated women show much lower support for militancy relative to educated men. 

Imagine a society where women are unable to deliver their babies in hospitals because the only on-call doctor is male, or a society where any girl emerging from the house to study or any women going to work is under threat. This was Afghanistan under Taliban rule. The good news is that Pakistan is not there — yet. That it took an attempted murder of a courageous girl and the brazenness of the Taliban’s public proclamations threatening her life again, to shake us out of our complacency is appalling. 

This attack was not about drones and it was not about Islam. This is about a struggle for power and control by the Taliban and an effort to remove any traces of productive participation by women in society. Just as the Taliban scare us with terror, we must scare them by making them unable to operate. The threat of persecution may not serve as a deterrent to the crazed suicide bomber variety of militants, but it will deter many elements within the Taliban and it will importantly deter future militant recruits. We must terrorise them by investing more than ever before in educating girls.

The Taliban know that they lie on the fringes of society, given that even the militant Jamaatud Dawa publicly opposed the attack on Malala. This tragedy reeks of their desperation, not their strength. Let this event be a lesson to the Taliban and be their end.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 12^th, 2012.

Hollow reaction of Muslims مسلمانوں کے کھوکھلے نعروں

Rebutal: Anti Islam Video from USA

On the pretext of freedom of speech USA and West allows the extremists to insult Islam, Quran and Prophet Muhammad [peace be upon him]. They are well aware that this will hurt the feelings of 1.5 billion Muslims, the world over who can not bear any non sense on the pretext of freedom of speech. On the other side In … Continue reading »

New Fitnah- Anti Islam Film

On the pretext of freedom of speech USA and West allows the extremists to insult Islam, Quran and Prophet Muhammad [peace be upon him]. They are well aware that this will hurt the feelings of 1.5 billion Muslims, the world over who can not bear any non sense on the pretext of freedom of speech. On the other side In … Continue reading » 

ناراضی ظاہر کرنے کا ایک طریقہ ملائیشیا میں سولہ غیر سرکاری تنظیموں نے اختیار کیا۔ انہوں نے اپنے بیس نمائندے بھیج کر امریکی سفارت خانے کو ایک میمورینڈم دیا، پیغام ان کا بھی یہ ہی تھا کہ انہیں اسلام کی توہین قبول نہیں ہے، بس انداز ذرا مختلف تھا اس لیے کوئی جانی یا مالی نقصان نہیں ہوا

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