Barry Rubin notes some additional major stories that have not been covered in the MSM. The Fatwa he mentions may represent a significant inflexion point in the conflict between the West and "Those-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."
Revolutions, walk-outs and fatwas
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 doctrine 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.”
I could find no mention of Dr. Imad Mustafa in a search at the New York Times web site today. The implications are important:
What does it mean about extending “God’s religion,” i.e., Islam? On the surface, “where 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. Presumably, Mustafa won’t be forced to retract this fatwa by his colleagues or Egypt’s government.
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.
It has always been in the interest of the radical Islamists to enlarge their war against us to become a true conflict of civilizations. Their power, indeed their survival, depends upon enlarging the conflict. That is why I was always supportive of the Bush administration's attempts to retain a clear distinction between fighting against the radicals as opposed to the entire Islamic world. Bush went too far in insisting that Islam was the "Religion of Peace" but at least there could be a reasonable rationale for such an approach. However, the Obama administration has taken this approach to an absurd level; they refuse to criticize tyrants and continually attempt to engage those who use Islam as a weapon against us. By effacing the distinction between truly moderate Muslims and the radical Islam which is gaining legitimacy (if it ever lost it) in much of the Muslim world, acquiescence in the name of Peace (and appeasement) if you will, the Obama administration is enabling the exact opposite of what they profess to desire.
Events in Tunisia suggest a nascent democracy is possible, albeit unlikely. Instability in the Middle East usually leads to unhappy outcomes. The Obama administration's current stance, American recusal in the struggle for democracy, can only lead to poorer outcomes.
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