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Fatwa against Iraqi violence
BY Gerald Butt, Middle East Correspondent
A GROUP of senior Iraqi Muslim clerics, two Sunni and two Shia, have issued a fatwa denouncing the violence and religious sectarianism in their country. The declaration came after a meeting in Beirut, organised by Canon Andrew White and the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East (FRRME). Citing a verse from the Qur’an, the clerics, one of whom is chief religious adviser to the Prime Minister, said that “harming the spirit of human beings” was “totally prohibited” by Islam. They also quoted the Prophet Muhammad as saying that the spilling of one’s own blood was not allowed, meaning that suicide bombings were prohibited. They called for reconciliation, saying that sharia should be the basis for resolving conflicts. In a separate declaration, the four Iraqi leaders said the violence in their country was caused by “extremism without any religious or moral foundation”. They denounced “all foreign interference in Iraq in every way”, and identified this interference as the catalyst for “the violence and the sectarian divide”. FRRME said that there was “a serious acknowledgement that security is dramatically improving”. |
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