this is a few weeks old but still interesting:
On March 11 (the anniversary of the Madrid bombing), Mansur Escudero, the Secretary General of the Islamic Commission of Spain issued a fatwa against Osama Bin Laden. Here is coverage at Al-Jazeera and the Christian Science Monitor and here is the original fatwa in Spanish and the text of the fatwa in English
2 comments:
As-Salaamu 'alaikum,
I don't see why they have the authority to pronounce OBL a kafir, or what he has done to merit this. The ulama have always recognised the difference between a khariji, who uses false interpretations to justify killing when it is in fact not justified, and a kafir who annuls well-known rulings of the Shari'ah. The salaf did not make takfeer (i.e. call them kafirs) on the khawarij of old despite the fact that they slaughtered the Righteous people in vast numbers and very brutally. I'm not sure why they think the ruling has changed for OBL and the gang.
wa alaikum salaam Yusuf,
i don't think the islamic commission of spain is claiming some kind of "authority" for themselves. they are just saying that obl violates certain key islamic principles which removes him from being Muslim.
In terms of the actions of groups of the past like the Khawarij, i think that is different then the current situation. Those people were *actually* the salaf. So if we are talking about a conflict where Ali (ra) is on one side and Aishah (ra) on the other, of course we can't call either one of them kaffirs when both of them were promised Paradise by the prophet himself. If you have a conflict with Hussain (ra) on one side and Muawiya (ra) on the side it's the same thing. But this is a part of their special status as sahabas. It's not due to some special ijtihad license that you get when you kill people that you don't get when we are talking about women praying or eating ham sandwiches.
All the sahabas are considered mujtahids, and have a higher station than the highest saint of the subsequent generations. The same certainly cannot be said about OBL.
But in terms of what the ruling changes, I'm not sure it was directed at OBL to make his life easier. But I think He has certainly made life harder for Muslims living in Spain and for their sake I bet the Islamic Commission of Spain was thinking it would be valuable to distance themselves from Al-Qaedah and don't want anything to do with terrorism or OBL. And they want the rest of the Spanish public to know that.
Can't say I blame them.
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