A few days ago I wrote briefly about a Wall Street Journal article about Yenny Wahid, the daughter of the former President of Indonesia, who reasserted the familiar tropes that the true Islam is a religion of peace and that the global mujahedin are misusing it. Now Sheikh Qaradawi, who has been praised as a reformist by Saudi-funded Islamic “expert” John Esposito, asserts a very different view of Islam and the Qur’an. What would Yenny Wahid say to him? If she sincerely wants to spearhead Muslim reform, she should have some response to this.
“Leading Islamist Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi: We are Fighting in the Name of Islam…This Jihad is an Individual Duty of the Entire Muslim Nation…They Fight Us With the Torah…We Should Fight Them With the Koran: ‘There is a Jew Behind Me, Come and Kill Him,'” from MEMRI:
The following are excerpts from a television program with Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, aired on Qatar TV on February 25, 2006. Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi is head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, president of the International Association of Muslim Scholars (IAMS), and the spiritual guide of many other Islamist organizations across the world, including the Muslim Brotherhood.
TO VIEW THIS CLIP, VISIT: http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1052 .[…]
“We are fighting them in the name of Islam, because Islam commands us to fight whoever plunders our land, and occupies our country. All the school of Islamic jurisprudence – the Sunni, the Shi’ite, the Ibadhiya — and all the ancient and modern schools of jurisprudence — agree that any invader who occupies even an inch of land of the Muslims must face resistance. The Muslims of that country must carry out the resistance, and the rest of the Muslims must help them. If the people of that country are incapable or reluctant, we must fight to defend the land of Islam, even if the local [Muslims] give it up.
“They must not allow anyone to take a single piece of land away from Islam. That is what we are fighting the Jews for. We are fighting them… Our religion commands us… We are fighting in the name of religion, in the name of Islam, which makes this Jihad an individual duty, in which the entire nation takes part, and whoever is killed in this [Jihad] is a martyr. This is why I ruled that martyrdom operations are permitted, because he commits martyrdom for the sake of Allah, and sacrifices his soul for the sake of Allah.
“We do not disassociate Islam from the war. On the contrary, disassociating Islam from the war is the reason for our defeat. We are fighting in the name of Islam.”
[…]
“Everything will be on our side and against Jews on [Judgment Day]; at that time, even the stones and the trees will speak, with or without words, and say: ‘Oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim, there’s a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’ They will point to the Jews. It says ‘servant of Allah,’ not ‘servant of desires,’ ‘servant of women,’ ‘servant of the bottle,’ ‘servant of Marxism,’ or ‘servant of liberalism’… It said ‘servant of Allah.’…