Jordan Times
Thursday, July 7, 2005
Clerics forbid takfir
By Mahmoud Al Abed
AMMAN — Leading clerics on Wednesday endorsed fatwas (religious edicts) by top
Muslim authorities forbidding the declaration of any Muslim an apostate (takfir).
Concluding their three-day International Islamic Conference in the presence of
His Majesty King Abdullah, the clerics issued a joint statement that forbids
declaring any adherent to any one of the eight schools of Islamic jurisprudence
an apostate (see full text of the statement).
The eight schools, or Madhahib, are Sunni Shafite, Malikite, Hanbalite and
Hanafite as well as Shiite Jaafari, Ibadi and Zaydi in addition to Thahiri.
Signed by scholars and clergy of the eight schools, the statement, the first of
its kind, also limited the issuance of religious edicts to qualified Muslim
clerics in the eight schools.
The endorsement was based on fatwas by Grand Imam of Al Azhar (the top Sunni
authority) Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Sistani, (the top
Shiite authority in Iraq), Grand Mufti of Egypt Ali Jumaa, Shiite authorities
from the Jaafari and Zaydi schools, Grand Mufti of Oman Ahmad Khalili, the
Islamic Fiqh Academy in Saudi Arabia, the Grand Council for Religious Affairs of
Turkey, the Grand Mufti of Jordan Izzeddine Tamimi, and the Kingdom's National
Fatwa Committee, in addition to leading cleric Yusuf Qaradawi.
Other elements of the statement were drawn from King Abdullah's address to the
conference, which urged more than 170 scholars and clerics from the different
schools of Islamic thought to unify the global Muslim community against threats
to its integrity from both Muslims and non-Muslims.
The King said divisions within the global Islamic community, acts of violence
and terrorism, and accusations of apostasy and the killing of Muslims in the
name of Islam violate the spirit of Islam and generate global turmoil because
they give justification to non-Muslims to judge Islam according to acts that
Islam disavows, and subsequently interfere in Muslims' affairs.