So Baroness Warsi gave her speech exonerating Islam in Leicester University last night. I am grateful to Archbishop Cranmer for printing her speech in full, from which I see her proposing compatibility between Islam and John 1 and then (just half-way down), thinking it funny to rubbish the Old Testament using the sneering Dr Laura Questions (which are in fact easily answered).
In her speech, she also said this to her mainly-Muslim audience:
'Muslim communities must speak out against those who promote violence.
'Muslim men and women must make clear that any hatred towards others is wrong.
'And above all, not stand on the sidelines, but step forward and help to lead a progressive, united fight.'
Sayeeda Warsi is whistling in the wind. You would need a heart of stone not to laugh at the idea of Muslims helping to lead anything 'progressive' in Coalition terms.
But as to violence and hatred, well, just a few days ago, an important revelation appeared in the Jerusalem Post, written by the respected Barry Rubin. As he predicted, this development, the justification of 'offensive jihad' by a mainstream Muslim cleric, has not been covered in the mainstream media.
The Region: Revolutions, walk-outs and fatwas
By BARRY RUBIN
Jerusalem Post
16th January 2011
[...]
In Egypt, an extraordinarily important fatwa has been issued by Dr. Imad Mustafa, of al-Azhar University, the world's most important Islamic university.
He began by stating the well-known doctrine of "defensive jihad," that is Muslims must go to war against infidels who attack them. Of course, the word "attack" is often spread rather thinly to justify aggression.
But now Mustafa has publicly and explicitly come up with a new concept, one that up until now was supposedly restricted to groups like al-Qaida: "Then there is another type of fighting against the non-Muslims known as offensive jihad... which is to pursue the infidels into their own land without any aggression [on their part]...
"Two schools [of Islamic jurisprudence] have ruled that offensive jihad is permissible in order to secure Islam's border, to extend God's religion to people in cases where the governments do not allow it, such as the Pharaoh did with the children of Israel, and to remove every religion but Islam from the Arabian peninsula."
What does it mean about extending "God's religion," i.e., Islam? On the surface, "where the governments do not allow it" and the reference to Pharaoh seem to imply the complete prohibition of Islam.
But in the current context, this means that it is permissible to wage jihad against a country if anything "necessary" to Islam according to (hard-line) clerics' interpretations is blocked (polygamy, child marriage, special privileges at work places, building mosques anywhere, permitting the wearing of head scarves or burkas).
In practice, according to this doctrine, then, any non-Muslim can be attacked anywhere. Thus, mainstream, powerful clerics are now calling for a seventh century-style jihad against non-Muslim lands even if the victims cannot be accused of attacking Muslim ruled lands. Merely to "extend God's religion" to others is a sufficient motive. Mustafa says that two of Islam's main schools have always endorsed offensive jihad, but I doubt if he would have made that argument ten or 20 years ago.
Of course, that doesn't mean most Muslims will accept this new stance. But it does mean that radical groups now have mainstream support for their most extreme, aggressive behavior. Even if nobody repeats Mustafa's statement publicly - if for no other reasons than it is bad public relations in the West - this idea will be more and more taken for granted. ...
Moreover, we probably won't see senior clerics denouncing and rejecting the doctrine of offensive jihad.
This is a development of stupendous proportions that will probably not be covered in the Western mass media. If this viewpoint continues to spread, along with the growing al-Qaida type doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood, it could be a historical turning point that will greatly intensify revolutionary Islamist terrorism and attacks on the West.
The writer is director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center and editor of Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal and Turkish Studies. He blogs at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/
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