Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh Quotes
Terrorism violates Islam… Islam forbids all forms of injustice, killing without just cause, treachery...hijacking of planes, boats, and other means of transport.
Language differences and code words of different cultures are not always understood by other cultures. In this case the Sheikh wanted to condemn terrorism which was the official position of the Saudi Arabian government. However, Saudi Arabia, because it contains Mecca the Islamic Holy City, has a preeminent place in the Muslim world has a position of leadership which no other Islamic country has. While people in the West applauded the statement, it had little or no impact in the Muslim world. The reason is that the Arabic word he used for terrorism was a heinous one—a word which Islamic Terrorists (and most other Muslims) believe does not refer to their activities. Terrorism culturally means only acts of violence which are not morally justified. Not only do most Muslim terrorists perceive that they are Morally justified, but most have been given various fatwas (religious legal rulings) that says that their acts are required by God. For example, in a perversity of logic, Hamas—the Palestinian terrorist organization—sees Israeli acts like assassinating the suicide bomb engineers as terrorism while their behavior is a legitimate, moral struggle for national liberation. Few Islamic religious leaders speak out against terrorism, and those who do are often not understood to apply to Islamic terrorists.
Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sermon to two-million Muslim pilgrims at the hajj, February 1, 2004
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
In September of 2005 a Danish Newspaper published some political cartoons showing the hypocrisy of some Muslims who use Islam to justify murder of innocents and terrorism. Many in the Middle East protested vehemently because the Prophet Muhammad's visage was depicted against Islamic tradition. Many Muslim leaders claimed that insulting religion was an “abuse” of freedom of speech including those from nations which regularly publish material that is virulent against Christians and Jews. Momani reprinted the cartoons and wrote this editorial arguing that the cartoons insulted Islam far less than the terrorism and murder—especially a recent murder of Muslims in Amman attending an Islamic wedding ceremony, He was fired by the newspaper owners and then actually arrested by the Jordanian authorities for “Insulting Religion.”
After years of minority Sunni Muslim rule of Iraq, the U. S. invasion gave the majority Shiite Muslims political control. The Sunnis and Shiites have been at each others throats for centuries despite the fact that they are both Muslims. Saudi Arabia is the center of Sunni Islam and many of its religious extremists issue edicts advocating the suicide bombing of Shiite mosques and other facilities and assuring martyrdom for the suicide bombers.
Some of the Prophet’s followers by modern standards were very violent and urged attacks on innocent people in order to intimidate others. He was expelled from his Egyptian university and arrested, tried and found guilty of “holding religion in contempt”. Which is a crime in most Islamic countries. He also “insulted” the President. He is the first blogger to have been jailed in Egypt for the contents of his blog. See {585058}.
See {586916} for a passage from the Koran supporting his point.
In most religions, the clerics generally denounce violence especially where innocent people are involved as do many Islamic clerics throughout the world. However, a very large proportion of the Islamic Clergy not only condones violence but actually urges it and uses their interpretation of religious duty to motivate people in that direction. They tend to drown out the pacifistic Muslim clerics and in some cases they call for their death for heresy, thus intimidating many Islamic moderates.
Most sophisticated Muslim theologians would not agree at all with the “permission” he quotes from the Koran. However, there is no hierarchy of belief in Islam and there are tens of thousands of Muslim imams and millions of individual Muslims who believe and teach just what this particular terrorist stated.
Islamic religious extremists do not allow freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, right to life, freedom from torture and mutilation, self-government, gender equality, protection of children or women from violence, sexual freedom, freedom of expression, reproductive rights for women, right work, which are just a few. The modern Islamic extremists allow about the same human rights as did the Christian Kings and the Church of 1000 years ago. Ironically, it is less respect for human rights that many of the great Islamic societies provided 1000 years ago.
Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah Al-Sheikh (Arabic: عبد العزيز بن عبد الله آل الشيخ) is a Muslim scholar and the current Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia. As such he is head of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars and its sub-committee, the Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Issuing Fatwas.
