Last year, according to Arabic media accounts, “Saudi cleric Nasser al-‘Umar issued a fatwa permitting mujahidin [jihadis] in Syria to have sex-jihad with their sisters [muharamhum] if no one else is available. The Saudi preacher also praised the mujahidin for their ongoing fight against, in his words, the machine of infidelity and oppression, that is, the Syrian and Iranian regimes.”
The cleric issued his fatwa on “one of the channels associated with the radical jihadi movements” where he also reportedly said: “Some today are opposing the fatwas being issued by the clerics which serve our mujahidin brethren fighting in Syria [a likely reference to Muslim criticism—as opposed to Western denial—of the sex–jihad fatwas], without criticizing the killing of children and women in Syria.”
As shocking as this report may seem, it is not the first of its kind. For example, according to this Arabic documentary video (click “cc” for English subtitles), “The new jihad allows brothers and sisters in Syria belonging to the [al-Qaeda linked] al-Nusra Front to marry each other under the name of jihad because of the lack of girls among fighters of that organization.”
One man appears on video saying, “At the Zawia mountain there is an imam called Imam Hussein. They bring him a brother and a sister, he says ‘Allahu Akbar’ on them three times to have sex together and make them husband and wife.”
The rationale and justification of these fatwas is based on the Islamic maxim, “necessity makes the prohibited permissible,” not unlike the more familiar adage, “the ends justify the means.” … Keep reading