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Muslims Discouraged Against Hacking Israeli Sites
contributions by Mariam Al Than
DOHA (IslamOnline) - A leading Muslim scholar has said that unprovoked attacks against Israeli and Zionist websites by Arab and Muslim hackers are un-Islamic.
In an online fatwa (religious edict) session with IslamOnline, Sheikh Faisal Mawlawy, vice president of the Islamic European Fatwa Council, said Muslims "should not be initiators of such attacks."
"Launching any attacks on anti-Islamic and Zionist web sites is strongly prohibited, unless they start attacking Islamic ones," Mawlawy said.
The surprising fatwa comes after a recent cyberwar between Arab and Muslim hackers on the one hand, and Israeli hackers on the other. The online battle started in November in conjunction with clashes between Palestinian protestors and Israeli troops in the Occupied Territories.
Which side initiated the online battle remains unclear, but as a result, several Israeli, Arab and Muslim sites became the victims of "online violence".
Muslim hackers targeted several Israeli web sites, including that of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Internet providers.
Israel's top Internet provider, Netvision, which provides services for official Israeli government sites, came under a global hacker attack that disabled the firm's operations.
Israeli hackers took over Hezbollah's web site and several Saudi portals, leaving the Israeli flag on many of them. One message said, "This site was hacked by the Mossad," Israel's secret intelligence service.
Mawlawy said he issued the fatwa out of respect for international laws and conventions, which consider any purposive economic predatory act a punishable crime.
When asked about Zionist sites that libel Islam and slander Islamic symbols, Mawlawy said that Muslims could answer back only if attacks on Islamic sites had been offensive and had disrupted the site's online status.
When asked about Christian and secular sites which "spread corrupted beliefs and wicked ideas," Mawlawy said that Muslims had a mission to make things clear peacefully.
"The audience is wise enough to choose, and definitely they would choose Islam, simply because it's the religion of intuition," he said.
As for hacking American bank accounts in order to financially support Islamic groups, Mawlawy affirmed that such a practice is prohibited even if Jews or Christians own the banks. He, however, made an exception for banks in the Occupied Territories, suggesting they were legitimate targets.
Mawlawy added that it is allowable to occasionally visit Zionist or secular sites in order to gather information and discern the ideology they embrace.
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