Duas in MP3
| Open Letter |
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Open Letter to Shaykh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi and Al-Jazeera TV Your Excellency Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, I am jointly addressing this message to you and to the esteemed al-Jazeera TV which hosted this interview. May I respectfully request you to consider the following points that arise from your interview: (1) Recently you have expressed your deep concern that the Shias are proselytising the Sunnis. This has been expressed on your website, in al-Shari'ah wa'l Hayat programme on al-Jazeera and in the subject interview. Al-Jazeera on its own has raised this issue on several occasions. As this matter is worrying you both, would you be kind enough to answer the following queries: (a) Do the Shias hold anybody hostages and demand their conversion into the Shia faith as a ransom? (b) Do the Shias convert the Sunnis at gun-point? (c) Are we living in the Middle Ages or in the twenty-first century where hundreds of Shi'ite and Sunni sites are accessible to anybody with the click of a few buttons? In this age of satellite TVs, technological revolution and cyberspace, is it possible to restrict freedom of people to read and listen to whatever they like? (2) If the Shia students go to al-Azhar or King Abdul Aziz University for further studies, will these institutes teach them according to the Sunni faith or change their curriculum to teach them according to the Shia faith? Likewise, the basis of learning in the Shia institutes is bound to be according to the Shi'ite faith, irrespective of the affiliation of the students. If after graduating from the Shi'ite institutes, if the Sunni students decide to embrace the Shi'ite faith, or vice versa, how can you brand this as proselytising? When your Du'aat (missionaries) convert people into Islam, don't you assume that Islam means only according to the Sunni denomination (?) which means that this method is quite acceptable to you, but if adopted by the Shias, it is not acceptable! (3) I haven't come across a single word of objection on your part:- (a) against the Sunnis converting the Christians into Islam of Sunni school of thought only. (b) against the extremist Salafi Jihadists converting Sunnis into their brand of radical Islam. (c) against very aggressive proselytising process adopted by the Wahhabis since the influx of the petro-dollars in converting Sunnis into their school. (d) against the Salafi Jihadists who are openly venting their hatred against the Shias and calling them "infidels". (4) Your excellency, you know better than anybody that the malicious spite against the Shias has given birth to the terrorist groups who do not care what the Quran and the Sunnah have to say about the killing of innocent souls. These terror gangsters have been operating in Pakistan for more than twenty years. But such a trend has not emerged overnight. The negative writings of Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Abdul Wahhab are a living testimony for promoting hatred. I would go a step further. Refer to the writings of your four Imams - Abu Hanifa, al-Shafi'i, Malik and Ibn Hanbal - all of them have referred to the Shias with derogatory term of "Rafidi". How can these imams justify their conduct under the Quranic injunction (?) which clearly states: 49:11 O ye who believe! Let not some men among you laugh at others: It may be that the (latter) are better than the (former): Nor let some women laugh at others: It may be that the latter are better than the (former): Nor defame nor be sarcastic to each other, nor call each other by (offensive) nicknames: Ill-seeming is a name connoting wickedness, (to be used of one) after he has believed: And those who do not desist are (indeed) the oppressors. But because of centuries of brainwashing and blatant lies, the extremists have taken it upon themselves to pass the verdict of "kufr" against whoever differs with them; and they openly advocate the killing of Shias whom they consider "infidels" along with Jews and Christians. The situation is so bad that it is difficult even for our kids to get acceptability in the circle of their school-mates once the latter become aware that their mates are Shias. Our children are told on the face that the Shias are "kuffar" not only by their fellow students but also by school teachers who are supposed to be exemplars in Akhlaq (morality). The blessed Messenger of Allah has been described in the Quran to be at the heights of sublime character. And yet, the school teachers whom we trust with the education of our children have not taken from Islam the very basic morality. In the Islamic school environment where they are expected, at least under the law of the land in which we live, to treat the students equally, they discriminate between them if they come to know that he or she is a Shia. Perhaps you should explore the bullying that goes on in some Islamic schools against the Shia children by the Sunni teachers, in particular by the Wahhabis, before questioning the concept of Taqiyya ( as you have done in the said interview). (5) The whole world knows as has been widely reported in the international press that all the suicide bombers in Iraq are Sunnis and none of them is a Shia, simply because if Islam prohibits suicide, then it means that it prohibits suicide in every circumstance. The Shias neither use ijtihad nor Qiyas to turn the halal of Muhammad into haraam or the haraam of Muhammad into halal. Why don't you and al-Jazeera appeal with equal enthusiasm to the Sunni youths not to fall into the trap of these terror groups and why don't you appeal to the terror groups to stop proselytising the misinformed and misled Sunni youths into their destructive cause? (6) The whole world is aware that the suicide bombers have targeted helpless civilians and that they come from across the borders from the known Arab countries which support the insurgency in Iraq. It was a shock to hear in the subject interview that you were not aware of this fact! It is also widely reported that the overwhelming victims of indiscriminate killings are Shias (80 - 90%). But unfortunately, you have not given any fair and equitable weight to the loss of lives of these innocent people, including women and children, as you have given to the 10 - 20% by raising hue and cry on your website and on al-Jazeera. Aren't they human beings too, or are we applying discriminatory standards? Even after taking into account the deplorable revenge attacks against the Sunnis, independent statistics prove that 70% of all mosques, Hussainiyyat and shrines that are destroyed by the terrorists belong to the Shias. Where is the sense of proportion in this case? (7) Your excellency, you and al-Jazeera have some moral if not Islamic duties to make sure that no one who relies on the information expressed by you is deliberately misled. Many people hear your Friday sermons televised from Qatar. On a number of occasions you have blamed the Maraja' in Iraq for not doing enough to stop violence against the Sunnis. Rafsanjani told you to read the papers more to find out to what extent the Maraja' of Iran have emphasised the unity of all Iraqi people and have unanimously condemned all the violence, whatever its source. As regards the Maraja' of Iraq, you could have accessed their websites easily and found out for yourself that each and every incident against the Sunnis has been strongly condemned by them. (8) You and al-Jazeera are quite aware that before the Samarra bombing, there were no death squads and there were no revenge killings. For three years, only the Shias took the beating of the declared policy of the takfiris to ignite a civil war in Iraq. The destruction of Samarra shrine changed the equation. Had it not been for the immediate joint-Fatwa of the Maraja' in Najaf declaring it to be absolutely haraam to attack anybody else's mosques or properties in revenge, nobody could imagine how disastrous the situation might have turned out to be. Instead of thanking these Maraja' for the active step taken to contain violence, you adopted a very negative stance in condemning these Maraja' in your Friday sermon and on al-Jazeera, giving a totally false impression to the already misguided Muslims that the extremists on the other side are operating with the consent of the Maraja' of the Shias. With respect, this is tantamount to distort the facts intentionally or relying on the information supplied by the terrorist supporters. (9) The death squads and revenge killings, no matter how vicious and condemnable these acts are, they are after all, a direct product of persistent killings of the innocent civilians by no other than the Sunni groups. Violence always breeds violence. Anybody could have foreseen that the matter would get out of control. And this is precisely what has happened, thanks to the apathetic attitude adopted by the learned people and the media. This is not the end of the story. The Wahhabi clerics have been issuing provocative Fatwas declaring the Shias to be "kuffar" and declaring it to be a duty to destroy all the shrines, as Abdullah bin Jabrin has done; and these Fatwas are used as ammunition by the fanatical takfiris to escalate violence and kill the Shias and destroy their shrines. What active steps have you taken against these Fatwas which are tantamount to spreading Fasad (evildoing) on earth? Need I remind you of the punishment prescribed by the Quran against spreading evil on earth? (10) Your excellency, rest assured that if the Shias do nothing at all and sit at home, still the Sunnis will get converted. Don't assume that Allah has created human beings like cattle. Allah has granted them the capacity to think for themselves. They have seen with their naked eye the double-standards in the aftermath of the execution of the most brutal and savage dictator of the century. The Arab world turned a mass-murderer into a "hero" and "martyr", without any sense of shame, as if hundreds of thousands of Kurds whom he had massacred were third class citizens of the Muslim world; and as if the corpses in the mass-graves in Southern Iraq did not belong to human beings at all. In this way, learned men and their media have insulted hundreds of the verses of the Quran and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah against the oppressors and unjust people. They have violated the human dignity of the victims of the barbaric dictator. Only those who have no fear of Allah at all or do not believe in the Day of Judgement have the audacity of abusing the feelings and sensitivities of millions of his victims. Under their nationalist ego-worship or malice against the Shias, they even resorted to ludicrous excuses that as Iraq is an occupied country, the execution of the tyrant is illegal. Under the same token of logic, the murderers and rapists and robbers who were executed when the Muslim world was colonised by the Europeans powers, should also be declared "heroes" and "martyrs"! Another ridiculous excuse given against the execution of the tyrant is that after all, he recited the Kalema. Therefore, according to their contention, this is an adequate proof that he died a "martyr". If so, then they should also declare the Pharaoh a "martyr" because, according to the Quran, he too confessed to the Lordship of the God of Moosa and Haroon (and read Kalema). But the Quran testifies that his Kalema was rejected by Allah. (11) Your excellency, I am quite aware that you have condemned the indiscriminate killings by the terrorists; you have condemned the bombings on the day of Ashura in Karbala and the destruction of the Samarra shrine. You also condemned the assassination of Muhammad Baqer al-Hakim. But where is your stance against the takfiris who are spreading mayhem in Muslim and non-Muslim countries and spoiling the good name of Islam and its teachings? Where is your Fatwa prohibiting material and moral assistance to the takfiris? It is the hate-mongering by the takfiris that is compelling the people to re-consider that the truth can never be on the side of the mass-murderers and their supporters. (12) If you are right in your worry that the Sunnis are getting converted into the Shi'ite faith, then the main reason is that they have been let down by their Ulama and the media who tend to side with the oppressors against the oppressed and with the terrorists against their innocent victims. Do continue with this policy and it will back-fire on you. When Abdullah bin Jabrin issued his first Fatwa at the height of the Israeli Lebanese war, declaring the people of South Lebanon to be "kuffar" and prohibiting any assistance to them, his Fatwa found its way onto several Israeli websites. But Muslims around the world pelted his Fatwa for two weeks on Sawt al-Naas programme on al-Jazeera, as the hujjaj pelt Jamaratul Aqabah in Mina. Now he has issued another Satanic Fatwa that all sacred shrines and historical places should be destroyed. Rest assured, we are going to give full publicity to these lunatic Fatwas, so that the uninformed Sunni masses become aware of where does the truth lie. Even on 18 Feb. 2007 in al-Shari'ah wa'l Hayat programme on al-Jazeera, you evaded the blood-thirsty challenges of the takfiris by throwing the ball in the court of the Shias, alleging that they too consider ahl al-Sunnah "kuffar". What was your proof? That some of their Ulama claim that the Shias differ with the Sunnis on beliefs in Tawheed, 'Adl, Nabuwwah and Imamah, as you claimed. But have they ever said that because of these differences, the Shias should go on rampage killing the Sunnis, as the takfiris have permitted themselves, by shedding the blood of innocent people, including babies and children, every single day in Iraq? It is this type of complicity on the part of some Sunni Ulama which encourages the killers of innocent people to portray their terror as "Jihad". (13) As to the crocodile tears being shed by al-Jazeera TV on the tragic plight of Iraq under occupation, many people wish that al-Jazeera presents a factual documentary exposing the role that their own rulers in Qatar played in providing logistic and military facilities to the occupation forces to occupy Iraq. If they have no courage or guts to do so, then their mourning and groaning is nothing but journalistic dramatisation, and not honest representation of truth. M Abdullah http://www.human-rights-in-islam.co.uk/ |