Stop Terror Sheikhs, Muslim Academics Demand.

JEDDAH/NEW YORK, 30 October 2004 — Over 2,500 Muslim
intellectuals from 23 countries have signed a petition to
the United Nations calling for an international treaty to
ban the use of religion for incitement to violence.

It also calls on the Security Council to set up a tribunal
to try “the theologians of terror.” The petition is
addressed to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and to all
members of the Security Council and its current chairman.

“There are individuals in the Muslim world who pose as
clerics and issue death sentences against those they
disagree with,” says Shakir Al-Nablusi, a Jordanian
academic and one of the signatories. “These individuals
give Islam a bad name and foster hatred among
civilizations.”

Nablusi said hundreds of Arab writers and academics were
collecting more signatures and hope to have “tens of
thousands” by next month. Among those collecting signatures
are Jawad Hashem, a former Iraqi minister of planning, and
Alafif Al-Akdhar, a leading Tunisian writer and academic.
Most of the signatories are from Saudi Arabia and other
Gulf states plus Iraq, Jordan and Palestine.

The signatories describe those who use religion for
inciting violence as “the sheikhs of death”. Among those
mentioned by name is Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian
preacher working in Qatar. The signatories accuse him of
“providing a religious cover for terrorism.”

Last year Qaradawi raised a storm when he issued a fatwa
allowing the killing of Israeli pregnant women and their
unborn babies on the ground that the babies could grow up
to join the Israeli Army. Last September, Qaradawi in a
fatwa in response to a question from the Egyptian Union of
Journalists said killing “all Americans, civilian or
military” in Iraq was allowed.

“We cannot let such dangerous nonsense to pass as Islam,”
Nablusi says.

The petition also names the late Egyptian preacher Muhammad
Al-Ghazzali who, in 1992, issued a fatwa for the murder of
Farag Foda, an anti-clerical writer in Cairo. Within weeks
of the fatwa, zealots murdered Foda in his home.

Other “sheikhs of death” mentioned include the Yemeni
Abdul-Majid Al-Zendani, and the Saudis Ali bin Khudhair
Al-Khudhair and Safar Al-Hawali. The two Saudis have
described the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against the United
States as “retaliations”, and thus justified under Islamic
law.

Issuing murder fatwas has a long story.

In 1947 the late Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against
Ahmad Kasravi, one of Iran’s most prominent lawyers. A few
weeks later, six men stabbed Kasravi to death in a court of
law. In 1951 a group of mullas issued a fatwa for the
murder of Iran’s Prime Minister Haji-Ali Razmara. He was
shot dead a few days later. In 1989 Khomeini issued a fatwa
for the murder of the British novelist Salman Rushdie.

The signatories of the petition also want the UN to order
its member states to stop broadcasting the “mad musings of
the theologians of terror.”

Prominent Scholar Malki Dies.

JEDDAH, 30 October 2004 — Sayed Muhammad Alawi Malki, a
prominent scholar of Makkah, died yesterday morning in the
holy city at the age of 60. He was suffering from diabetes.

Malki was born in Makkah and brought up in a religious
family. His father, Sayed Alawi Malki, was one of Makkah’s
well-known religious scholars. He was educated in Makkah
inside the holy mosque under the guidance of top scholars,
including his father and Sheikh Hasan Muhammad Al-Mashat.

He studied in Al-Falah school in Jeddah and the school to
memorize the holy Qur’an in Makkah. He traveled to India
and Pakistan to learn from Hadith scholars. He got his
Masters and PhD from Al-Azhar University in Egypt. He was
also trained in Morocco. He taught in the Shariah College
of Makkah from 1390 AH to 1399 AH.

Malki took his father’s seat in the holy mosque after he
died in 1391 AH and taught for many years the Arabic
language, history of the Prophet (peace be upon him),
Hadith, explanation of the Qur’an and jurisprudence. He
participated in many Islamic and international conferences
and wrote 37 books on the history of the prophet and
jurisprudence.

Lutfullah Hatim, a friend of Sheikh Malki, said he was
shocked by the scholar’s death.

He described him as a great scholar who enjoyed helping
people. “The Islamic world is poorer today by his death,”
he added.










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