Fatwa calls for offensive jihad

Visit our News page Fatwa calls for offensive jihad ACT! for America TV program to debut February 5th Guy Rodgers and Brigitte Gabriel on the set of “ACT! for America,” which will be aired in over 190 markets on ALN and Family Net. Recently we have seen two noteworthy developments from the world of jihad. Inspire, al Qaida’s English language magazine, issued a call for plundering the wealth of the West to finance jihad as well as presenting new strategies to carry out violent jihad. A Jerusalem Post article below reports that Dr. Imad Mustafa, of al-Azhar University, has issued a fatwa sanctioning “offensive jihad.” ACT! for America’s new television program, which premieres February 5th, will be addressing topics such as sharia law, the Muslim Brotherhood, and jihad. It will air on Family Net at 2:30 PM ET on February 5th, and ALN at 4:00 PM ET. The two networks combined have penetration into over 190 markets. Please check your local listings. It will also be available to view online. Please spread the word! http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=203876 The Region: Revolutions, walk-outs and fatwas By BARRY RUBIN Jerusalem Post 01/16/2011 [...] In Egypt, an extraordinarily important fatwa has been issued by Dr. Imad Mustafa, of al-Azhar University, the world's most important Islamic university. He began by stating the well-known do ctrine of "defensive jihad," that is Muslims must go to war against infidels who attack them. Of course, the word "attack" is often spread rather thinly to justify aggression. But now Mustafa has publicly and explicitly come up with a new concept, one that up until now was supposedly restricted to groups like al-Qaida: "Then there is another type of fighting against the non- Muslims known as offensive jihad... which is to pursue the infidels into their own land without any aggression [on their part]... "Two schools [of Islamic jurisprudence] have ruled that offensive jihad is permissible in order to secure Islam's border, to extend God's religion to people in cases where the governments do not allow it, such as the Pharaoh did with the children of Israel, and to remove every religion but Islam from the Arabian peninsula." What does it mean about extending "God's religion," i.e., Islam? On the surface, "wh ere the governments do not allow it" and the reference to Pharaoh seem to imply the complete prohibition of Islam. But in the current context, this means that it is permissible to wage jihad against a country if anything "necessary" to Islam according to (hard-line) clerics' interpretations is blocked (polygamy, child marriage, special privileges at work places, building mosques anywhere, permitting the wearing of head scarves or burkas). In practice, according to this doctrine, then, any non-Muslim can be attacked anywhere. Thus, mainstream, powerful clerics are now calling for a seventh century-style jihad against non-Muslim lands even if the victims cannot be accused of attacking Muslim ruled lands. Merely to "extend God's religion" to others is a sufficient motive. Mustafa says that two of Islam's main schools have always endorsed offensive jihad, but I doubt if he would have made that argument ten or 20 years ago. Of course, that doesn't mean most Muslims will accept this new stance. But it does mean that radical groups now have mainstream support for their most extreme, aggressive behavior. Even if nobody repeats Mustafa's statement publicly - if for no other reasons than it is bad public relations in the West - this idea will be more and more taken for granted. ... Moreover, we probably won't see senior clerics denouncing and rejecting the doctrine of offensive jihad. This is a development of stupendous proportions that will probably not be covered in the Western mass media. If this viewpoint continues to spread, along with the growing al-Qaida type doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood, it could be a historical turning point that will greatly intensify revolutionary Islamist terrorism and attacks on the West. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ACT for America P.O. Box 12765 Pensacola, FL 32591 www.actforamerica.org ACT for America is an issues advocacy organization dedicated to effectively organizing and mobilizing the most powerful grassroots citizen action network in America, a grassroots network committed to informed and coordinated civic action that will lead to public policies that promote America’s national security and the defense of American democratic values against the assault of radical Islam. We are only as strong as our supporters, and your volunteer and financial support is essential to our success. Thank you for helping us make America safer and more secure. 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