Muslim Leadership addresses the Islamic State directly

[The Coup]

Its in Arabic and English, but this is a very significant group of Islamic religious leaders:

http://lettertobaghdadi.com/arabic2.php

126 of the most senior figures in Islam just laid a theological and legal beatdown on Al-Bahgdadi.

My favourite part:

In one of your speeches you said: ‘Syria is not for Syrians and Iraq is not
for Iraqis54.’ In the same speech, you called on Muslims from across the globe to immigrate to lands
under the control of the ‘Islamic State’ in Iraq and the Levant. By doing so, you take the rights and
resources of these countries and distribute them among people who are strangers to those lands,
even though they are of the same religion. This is exactly what Israel did when it invited Jewish
settlers abroad to immigrate to Palestine, evict the Palestinians and usurp their ancestral rights and
lands. Where is the justice in this?

As for the Islamic State's conduct in war, the letter notes that Islamic law forbids the killing of prisoners.

"Yet you have killed many prisoners," it states, "including the 1700 captives at Camp Speicher in Tikrit in June, 2014; the 200 captives at the Sha'er gas field in July, 2014; the 700 captives of the Sha'etat tribe in Deir el-Zor (600 of whom were unarmed civilians); the 250 captives at the Tabqah air base in Al-Raqqah in August, 2014; Kurdish and Lebanese soldiers, and many untold others whom God knows. These are heinous war crimes."

 

[Maggie5]

Its in Arabic and English, but this is a very significant group of Islamic religious leaders:

http://lettertobaghdadi.com/arabic2.php

126 of the most senior figures in Islam just laid a theological and legal beatdown on Al-Bahgdadi.

For those who have state that they want the leaders to speak out, English translation attached.
Pretty powerful.

 

[The Coup]

I definitely learned a bit about Islam reading that. Probably one of the advantages of not having a central church like the Christians, is that when extremism pops up the general consensus is a lot more powerful (especially when you look at the fact every continent on earth is represented in the letter)

 

[ShanDog]

Brilliant. I have been wondering where and when we would see some open declarations against the IS movement from Muslim leaders and, particularly, scholars. I am also glad they translated it into English for the many followers who don't speak Arabic or understand it well enough to receive the message.

Well done to them.

 

[Richard Pryor]

RisingPheonix, would you say this is strongfully worded enough to make any whirlwind unjustified?

 

[The Coup]

Brilliant. I have been wondering where and when we would see some open declarations against the IS movement from Muslim leaders and, particularly, scholars. I am also glad they translated it into English for the many followers who don't speak Arabic or understand it well enough to receive the message.

Well done to them.

I liked that they don't shy away from the concept of Sharia or Caliphates, knowing full well there would be a western audience. They demonstrate that things like apostasy are completely about interpretation, and that IS have a completely incorrect interpretation of what apostasy is (just as an example).

They could easily have denied apostasy as being relevant in the modern world (because it is irrelevant), but instead they took a proper theological approach.

You'd have to think the average muslim reading the above letter, compared to what IS spew, is hardly going to think IS relevant (especially when they account for 40,000 of an estimated 2 billion Muslims or around 0.00019 percent).

 

[ShanDog]

I am a Christian and am always frustrated by the throw-away lines people use when arguing religion because they essentially use the same method as what is described in the document - cherry pick particular quotes/sections that support the argument (for or against), have no contextual understanding of what is written, no theological training in how to interpret the texts and then claim to know the answer.

There seems to be a lack of understanding from people in general about how complex the task is of UNDERSTANDING what is written in texts that are up to 2000 years old from other cultures and languages. People devote their entire lives to studying scriptures, ideologies and religious texts, yet the average person arguing the merits of them on the internet says "Hey, I've read XYZ scripture and I know what I'm talking about!"

No you don't. Reading is NOT understanding.

In this regard, I applaud them for directly refuting the actions of IS with theological explanations of the Qur'an verses.

 

[The Coup]

I am a Christian and am always frustrated by the throw-away lines people use when arguing religion because they essentially use the same method as what is described in the document - cherry pick particular quotes/sections that support the argument (for or against), have no contextual understanding of what is written, no theological training in how to interpret the texts and then claim to know the answer.

There seems to be a lack of understanding from people in general about how complex the task is of UNDERSTANDING what is written in texts that are up to 2000 years old from other cultures and languages. People devote their entire lives to studying scriptures, ideologies and religious texts, yet the average person arguing the merits of them on the internet says "Hey, I've read XYZ scripture and I know what I'm talking about!"

No you don't. Reading is NOT understanding.

In this regard, I applaud them for directly refuting the actions of IS with theological explanations of the Qur'an verses.

Me too. I'm related to some professional Theologians and I've got a lot of respect for the work they do taking important text and applying it to a modern setting. This letter showed me it isn't just Anglicans that do that (and recently Catholics). Its clear that Islam has a process for gaining similar consensus as it did on slavery. The Bible and the Quran both discuss slavery, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest Jesus and Mohammad, respectively, were not fans of it. Once its no longer a necessity or tolerated, its important that faith modernise with that.

Understanding is a really good thing.

 

[The Coup]

DardySingh360 RisingPhoenix What do you guys think?

 

[Moo]

DardySingh360 RisingPhoenix What do you guys think?

It's a trap!

 

[Jiska]

I am a Christian and am always frustrated by the throw-away lines people use when arguing religion because they essentially use the same method as what is described in the document - cherry pick particular quotes/sections that support the argument (for or against), have no contextual understanding of what is written, no theological training in how to interpret the texts and then claim to know the answer.

There seems to be a lack of understanding from people in general about how complex the task is of UNDERSTANDING what is written in texts that are up to 2000 years old from other cultures and languages. People devote their entire lives to studying scriptures, ideologies and religious texts, yet the average person arguing the merits of them on the internet says "Hey, I've read XYZ scripture and I know what I'm talking about!"

No you don't. Reading is NOT understanding.

In this regard, I applaud them for directly refuting the actions of IS with theological explanations of the Qur'an verses.

A sensational post. Worth quoting and acknowledging - the like button just didn't do enough.

 

[DardySingh360]

DardySingh360 RisingPhoenix What do you guys think?

Good to see.

 

[The_Reaper]

Great thing to see and hopefully their rebuttal is well telecast so that people who may lean towards ISIS can hear if.

 

[RisingPhoenix]

DardySingh360 RisingPhoenix What do you guys think?

Well done.

Not before time, but obviously welcome nonetheless.

Curious - why hasn't Jiska shut this thread down? He shuts everything else down RE- ISIL etc.

Double standard?

 

[DrKrieger]

Great thing to see and hopefully their rebuttal is well telecast so that people who may lean towards ISIS can hear if.

Seems slow on the uptake, a search of google news shows it has been picked up so far by Reuters, ibt, huffpost and the independent, then a bunch of what look like blog-esque sites I've never heard of. Wonder if the weekend Australian, SMH and the Age will run with it tomorrow?

 

[The Coup]

Seems slow on the uptake, a search of google news shows it has been picked up so far by Reuters, ibt, huffpost and the independent, then a bunch of what look like blog-esque sites I've never heard of. Wonder if the weekend Australian, SMH and the Age will run with it tomorrow?

I'm waiting patiently too. You'd think it would be big news for someone like Bolt.

 

[The Coup]

Well done.

Not before time, but obviously welcome nonetheless.

Curious - why hasn't Jiska shut this thread down? He shuts everything else down RE- ISIL etc.

Double standard?

I think this one is remaining open because of its importance and the fact it has such unanimous support on the forum (which is great to see from you and DardySingh360 I will add).

Doubt we'll get many people disagreeing with the content or the motivation behind this letter. But I dare say a lot of us will get a lot out of reading it.

If I post it simply in the "terror" thread, there's every chance it goes missing, or people use it as ammunition (which admittedly I did anyway by calling you and Dardy to the thread, but seeing as your responses are so mature and intelligent it backfired on me)

 

[telsor]

It's certainly a good start.