SHEIKHS OF DEATH

Here’s a story that should be on the front page of the New York Times but isn’t, since it’s actual news of global importance instead of phony scandals like “Plamegate” or attempts to criminalize conservatives such as Tom DeLay.

A group of prominent Arab intellectuals has sent a letter, co-signed by over 4,000 Moslem authors, scholars, poets, and journalists worldwide to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan requesting the establishment of an International Criminal Court for the prosecution of Islamic terrorists and the Moslem leaders who incite them.

Funny how you haven’t heard about this in the liberal “mainstream” media, huh?

The Open Letter from Liberal Arabs and Muslims was composed by three well-known Arab writers, Lafif Lakhdar from Tunisia, Shaker Al-Nabulsi from Jordan, and Jawad Hashim from Iraq. They perceptively zero in on a primary cause of Islamic terrorism: Fatwas, religious rulings issued by Moslem sheiks and clerics claiming to speak for Allah.

Criminal law views someone found to be “aiding and abetting” a crime just as punishable as the crime’s perpetrator. The letter thus demands the criminal prosecution of those who issue fatwas calling upon Moslems to commit terrorist acts. The letter calls the sheikhs who issue such fatwas “Sheikhs of Death.”

“It is not enough for the Security Council to adopt resolutions ‘condemning’ terrorism,” the letter informs Kofi Annan. Because “certain religious fatwas remain the pivotal cause of terrorist acts – fatwas which clothe such terrorist acts with legitimacy as being one of the sacred tenets of Muslim faith” – such fatwas constitute “terrorist acts,” and those responsible for them should be tried by an International Tribunal.

Then the letter names names.

“We can provide you (Kofi Annan) with exhaustive lists of fatwas which incite terrorist acts,” the letter notes, and proceeds to give examples:

*Sheikh Ali bin Khudair al-Khudairi of Saudi Arabia, who published a fatwa in February 2002 approving Al Qaeda’s September 11 attacks on America, and declaring: “It is legitimate to kill all infidel Americans, be they combatants or non-combatant like the old, the blind, or non-Moslems.”

*Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi of Egypt, whose fatwas in September 2004 ordered Moslems to kill all American civilians working in Iraq, and approved of killing pregnant Jewish women and their unborn babies because the babies could grow up to join the Israeli Army.

Qaradawi publicly stated in 1999: “I have issued a religious edict blessing the martyrdom operations in which a given Moslem fighter turns himself or herself into a human bomb that casts terror in the hearts of the enemy.” Qaradawi’s weekly program on Al-Jazeera satellite television has made him enormously popular in the Arab world.

*Sheikh Mohammed al-Ghazali, leader of the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt, whose fatwas approved the murder of Moslem apostates such as Egyptian author Faraj Foda who had renounced his belief in Islam.

These and other Sheikhs of Death are “providing a religious cover for terrorism,” says Lakhdar and his colleagues, whose incitement must be criminalized. “We cannot let their dangerous nonsense to pass as Islam… we cannot allow these psychotic people to act in the name of and under the banner of Islam.”

The predictable response of Kofi Annan has been to ignore the letter and dismiss the request. The Jihadi website Nahdha.net – based in London and still not shut down by British authorities months after the July 7 London bombings – promptly issued a (what else?) fatwa calling for Lafif Lakhdar’s murder as punishment for his blasphemy.

Rather than the formation of an international court for terrorist incitement, what has had to be formed is the Lafif Lakhdar International Defense Committee (LLIDC), which provides 24-hour bodyguard protection for Lakhdar and the other petitioners, all under death threats.

It is only by standing up to Islamic intimidation, and supporting those who do, that Jihadism can be defeated. Lafif Lakhdar deserves our support. To do so, you can contact the chairman of the LLIDC, Abu Khawla at [email protected].