Is Islamic Law an Answer for Humanitarians?...
DUBAI, 24 April 2014 (IRIN) – Humanitarian action today is largely taking place in Muslim-majority countries where some combatants turn to Islamic law, among other sources, to guide their military behaviour. As a result, in the last decade, aid and advocacy agencies have increasingly tried to understand Islamic law in order to use its humanitarian provisions as tools of negotiation with armed groups in the Muslim world. This is particularly helpful in engaging Islamist armed groups, some of whom reject international humanitarian law (IHL). Some aid agencies try to situate their arguments for access or protection of civilians within a religious context, sometimes using scholars, mullahs or other religious figures as liaison with Islamist armed groups. Others, like...
Top Ten Ways Islamic Law Forbids Terrorism...
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 21, has been convicted on all counts in the Boston Marathon bombings. Dzhokhar and his brother Tamerlan were from a mixed Chechen and Avar family. Dzhokhar was born in Kyrgyzstan, a Central Asian republic that had been part of the Communist Soviet Union. Being from a Soviet background, the Tsarnaevs were probably originally more or less atheists, whatever they said later. Even Soviet Muslims from the Caucasus and Central Asia who identified as “Muslims” mostly did so before the 1990s as a matter of ethnicity, not piety. Most Soviet Muslim men drank copious amounts of vodka. Few knew how to pray in the Muslim manner with prostrations. Being deracinated appears to have left the Tsarnaev boys...
Islam Requires Muslims to Protect Christians...
Five years ago, I lost close friends in one of the most gruesome terrorist attack on Pakistani soil. In twin attacks on two Mosques in Lahore, 88 Ahmadi Muslim worshippers were killed at the hands of the Taliban. It was a painfully bloody day. This last weekend, I woke up to sad news from Pakistan that made me relive some of that pain. Fourteen worshipers were killed, and more than 70 were injured, when two Taliban suicide bombers blew themselves up outside churches in the Youhanabad neighborhood of Lahore, Pakistan. These attacks on Pakistan’s Christian community are not a sporadic event. They are a part of a very tragic trend. Just over a year ago, another suicide attack...
There’s No Place for Terror in the Teachings of Islam...
Every Muslim is in utter shock about the senseless, appalling and cowardly attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris, and the other senseless violence against innocents we have seen since in Copenhagen and Libya. Let us say it plainly: These horrific acts are a complete violation of Islamic law and norms, and the perpetrators are in no way representative of Muslim people or the religion of Islam. God upholds the sanctity of life as a universal principle. The Koran states in 4:29: “And do not kill one another, for God is indeed merciful unto you.” Islam views murder as both a crime punishable by law in this world and as a major sin punishable in the Afterlife. As Prophet...
IMF Endorses Islamic Finance, Warns it Must be Implemented Better...
(Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund has endorsed the principles of Islamic finance, saying it could prove safer than conventional finance, but the multilateral lender warned Islamic bankers that they must tighten rules and follow them more consistently. A report released by the IMF this week showed the lender’s growing interest in Islamic banking, which is expanding in much of the world. Last October, the IMF launched discussions with an external advisory group of Islamic finance experts and industry bodies. The IMF’s report noted that because Islamic banking forbids pure monetary speculation and stresses that deals should be based on real economic activity, it could pose less risk than conventional banking to the stability of financial systems. This...
Islamic Scholars Call for Access to Vaccinate Children...
Amman, Feb.27 (Petra) – Protection against diseases is obligatory and admissible under the Islamic Shariah, and that any actions which do not support these preventive measures and cause harm to humanity are un-Islamic, Islamic scholars said Thursday. During the first meeting of the Global Islamic Advisory Group for polio eradication, religious leaders denounced violence against health workers involved in polio vaccination campaigns, saying that such violence caused lasting harm to children and communities. The scholars led by the Grand Imam of the Holy Mosque of Mecca, adopted a strong “Jeddah Declaration” and a focused six-month Action Plan to address critical challenges facing polio eradication efforts in the few remaining polio-endemic parts of the Islamic world: a ban on...
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