“I told them that there are restrictive rules in Islam for waging holy war. Jihad must be under the umbrella of the state and should be approved by one’s parents.” Unfortunately, probably many of the Muslims who hear this message know that in Islamic law defensive jihad becomes obligatory upon every individual Muslim when a Muslim land is attacked — which is why jihad groups today couch their appeals and justifications in terms of defensive jihad. To wage defensive jihad a Muslim needs neither state direction nor the approval of one’s parents. But this kind of thing goes down well with Western non-Muslims, and that’s all that matters.
“Syria Tries Rehabilitating Extremists,” by George Baghdadi for CBS News, May 28 (thanks to Twostellas):
Alarmed to see suspected terrorists coming out of its jails even more dedicated to radical Islam than they went in, Syria offered a few-month-long, soft approach rehabilitation program to turn the vulnerable youths away from fanaticism and jihad….
The rehabilitation program, which was adopted last year, enlisted 60 state-backed clerics to counter radical teachings with moderate passages from the Quran, Islam’s holy book. The government would not say whether the program was still underway.
“I was asked by the government last summer to talk to these people, to cleanse their minds from radical ideologies and try to fit them back into the Syrian society,” Sheik Mohammad Habbash Habbash, one of the program counselors, told CBS News.
“I told them that there are restrictive rules in Islam for waging holy war. Jihad must be under the umbrella of the state and should be approved by one’s parents,” he said.
“My lectures to four different groups were on how Islam views jihad, how Islam forbids people to go for fighting if that was not under the directives of the ruler,” said conservative sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Khateeb, another program counselor.
“The state here is following this issue. It is keen that the people are educated enough in the right way so that they are not influenced by wrong teachings and corrupted ideals,” he added….