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An Iraqi woman receives her monthly food rations in Baghdad on September 22.
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BAGHDAD,
September 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Shiite
leadership in the southern Muslim holy city of Najaf issued Sunday,
September 22, two religious decrees calling on Muslims to defend Iraq,
in the face of a potential U.S. military attack.
One
decree, or fatwa, by Imam Ali Hussein al-Sistani said “the duty of
Muslims in these difficult circumstances is to unify their position and
deploy all means to defend Iraq and protect it from enemy designs”,
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
“All
Muslims should know that if the aims of the aggressor are realized in
Iraq... it would be a catastrophe that would threaten the entire Muslim
world,” said Sistani.
A
second fatwa issued by prominent Najaf Imam Mohammad Said Al-Hakim
warned against “any kind of cooperation with the United States” and
attacked “all those who would broker a truce with the Americans.”
“The
United States and their agents are seeking to impose their control on
the Islamic nation, to loot its wealth and violate its holy sites,” he
said.
The
fatwas came as U.S. President George W. Bush pushes for military strikes
against Iraq which he accuses of seeking to develop weapons of mass
destruction.
Leading
Shiite clerics in Najaf had issued similar fatwas calling on the
faithful to fight for the defense of Iraq amid heavy U.S.-British air
strikes on the country in December 1998.
The
Shiites constitute about 55 percent of Iraq’s 22 million population.
In 1991, Iraqi forces suppressed rebellions by southern Iraqi Shiites
and northern Iraqi Kurds after a U.S.-led coalition evicted Iraq from
neighboring Kuwait after a seven-month occupation.
Najaf
ranks as one of the holiest sites for Shiites due its being the burial
ground of the Shiite Imam Ali.
Nearly
a week ago, on Sunday, September 15, speaking on his weekly show on
Al-Jazeera satellite channel, prominent Muslim scholar, Dr. Yousef
Al-Qaradawi, said that it is well known among Muslim scholars that
assisting the United States is prohibited, and that there is no benefit
for any Arab or Islamic country in assisting the U.S. in its aggression
against Iraq and that Islam prohibits oppression and assisting
oppressors.
Al-Qaradawi
said that Allah will vindicate the oppressed Muslim if he was unable to
fend away oppression, but he also punishes those who can fend away
oppression and choose to be silent. “We must not feel helpless and say
that we're oppressed. We must do something to fend this oppression,”
he said.
He
called upon Iraq to accept the U.N. weapons inspectors and said that the
Iraqi government should be wise in this matter so that there will be no
excuse for the United States to strike.
“The
wise person chooses the least of two bad situations and I think the
Iraqi government will consider the return of the inspectors, but it
doesn't want the return open without any limitations or conditions, or
else Iraq will be under sanctions forever.”
Al-Qaradawi
said in a earlier fatwa (religious edict) to IslamOnline that what the
Iraqi opposition is doing in terms of asking the U.S. and the U.K. for
help is not suitable for a Muslim concerned about the welfare of his own
country.
If
the Iraqi regime was cruel, he said, this does not mean that we replace
it with an American or British regime which would control the resources
of the region for the sake of U.S. or Zionist interests.
Islam,
the revered scholar added, does not allow Muslims to ask infidels for
help so that they may replace the leader who doesn't fulfill his duties
towards the nation. This, Al-Qaradawi said, would be more harmful than
if the leader remains.
