"In Islam, war should be only launched to help end injustice and maintain peace. Otherwise it would smack of terrorism," said Mubajje.

By Sobhy Mujahid, IOL Correspondent

CAIRO, May 1 (IslamOnline.net) – World Muslim scholars accused the United States of doing away with established war ethics and spearheading the failure of human rights movement alongside other major world countries.

"Honoring pledges, non-betrayal, issuing warning before striking and commitment to spare the lives of civilians; all are a part of ethics that should be honored at the time of war," Gamal El-Dine Mahmoud, a member of Al-Azhar's Islamic Research Academy said.

Addressing an international conference on "Tolerance in Islamic Civilization",  hosted by Cairo from April 28 through May 1, the scholar held the U.S.-British invasion and occupation of Iraq as a case in point.

"What happens in Iraq marks a true collapse of international war ethics," Mahmoud said, a few hours after the American network CBS aired photos of U.S. troops meting out apparent torture and sexual abuse to Iraqi detainees.

The images sparked outrage across the world, including a demand by Amnesty International for an independent probe into the shameless acts.

Mahmoud said that "aggression on the Muslim nation by occupying parts of its territories necessitates war".

Ramadan Mubajje, the mufti of Uganda, was of the same mind.

"One of the war ethics is that it should not be waged with the purpose of expansion or exploitation of others' wealth, which is not the case with respect to the occupation of Iraq," he stressed.

Iraq has the world's second largest oil-reserves.

Weapons of mass destruction – the main pretext for its invasion – have not been found more than one year after occupation.

"In Islam, war should be only launched to help end injustice and maintain peace. Otherwise it would smack of terrorism," said the Ugandan scholar.

He underlined that this Islamic principle has proved that associating the faith with terrorism is a "baseless accusation".

Human Rights Collapse

"These human rights violations sparked by policies of the U.S. and Israel require a political renaissance of the same magnitude," said Qublan

The conference participants also heaped blame on the United States for stark violations of human rights by its military in Iraq, and on Israel for its military aggressions against civilians in occupied Palestinian territories.

"These human rights violations sparked by policies of the U.S. and Israel require a political renaissance of the same magnitude," said Abdel-Amir Qublan, the deputy head of the Supreme Shiite Council in Lebanon.

But Qublan kept a fair share of his criticism for Muslim leaders.

"Those leaders put their personal interests in precedence over their peoples', something to justify the divisions now eating Islamic societies," the Shiite leader said.

"The tyrants still exercise their hegemony and violations, turning human rights principles into mere slogans".

Qublan stressed that Islam was the first to put a universal system of human rights.

Boycott & Jihad

Mustafa Al-Shakaa, a member of the Islamic Research Academy, said Muslims should reactivate the weapon of boycott to face aggressions against the Arab countries in general and the occupation of Iraq in particular.

Abdel-Sabbour Marzouq, the secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, said that aggression against Muslims requires Jihad as a "legitimate right of self-defense".

"Islam is against terrorism, but Jihad in itself is a human aim to protect weak people facing the tyranny of the strong," he elaborated.

Marzouq told the Muslim scholars attending the international conference that the United States and other countries have no right whatsoever to call on Arab and Islamic states to omit verses of Jihad in Qur'an from curricula.

The scholars attending the conference had urged incorporation of Sharia into the international law to avoid eruption of more crises or other forms of injustice.