RUTHFULLY YOURS

Dear Mr President,

Please let me address to you this message as a Christian with a Palestinian origin living in Switzerland. I am an expert on Arab and Islamic law, a field that I taught at various universities in Italy, France and Switzerland, and on which I published more than forty books, including an Arabic edition, an English translation and a French translation of the Koran in chronological order.

It is the duty of each of us to support the efforts of our leaders towards a better society and to wish them success in fulfilling their obligations.

The society, as a statue, has two legs: the public authority, and the scholars who have the knowledge. The public authority executes, and the scholars enlighten the public authority.

When an epidemic occurs, it is necessary that scholars are able to identify it … But still they must have been trained and are free to express themselves. Then the scholars must inform the public authority in order to take the necessary measures to counter this epidemic.

Your country, like Europe, the region where I come from, and the world are facing the rise of violence in particular by various Islamic terrorist groups. This violence is one of the causes of immigrant waves breaking on the shores of Europe, the US and other countries. In your statements, you highlighted these two issues.

You described “radical Islamic terrorism” as an “evil” unseen before, adding that it should be just “eradicated off the face of the earth”: “we gonna end it. It’s time. It’s time right now to end it”. But you have not said how you will achieve this goal. You also called Angela Merkel’s open door policy to refugees a “catastrophic mistake”, saying that Berlin, instead of hosting refugees, would have done better to advocate more for the creation of no-fly zones in Syria in order to protect the local population from the bombing. “The gulf states should have had to pay for them. After all, they have money like hardly anyone else has”.

Let me give you my humble opinion on these two issues.

Regarding radical Islamic terrorism, it is certainly necessary to fight it with weapons, but weapons alone will not suffice. It is also particularly important to eliminate the ideology on which radical Islamic terrorism is based, namely the Islamic ideology. To take adequate action we must call things by their name.

The radical Islamic terrorism is based on the Koran, the Sunnah of Muhammad and the teachings of Islam. Radical Islamic terrorist groups are only putting into practice what universities, Islamic centers, schools and mosques have been teaching for fourteen centuries in all Muslim countries, and even in Western countries, including yours. Egyptian journalists and intellectuals continue to denounce this teaching, which is the source of terrorism that destabilizes Egypt. This teaching is conveyed by mosques, schools and universities of Al-Azhar, the most important religious institution in the Sunni world. Without a radical change of this teaching, it is impossible to end the radical Islamic terrorism. But how to proceed?

Secularism may be accepted in a Christian society but it can never enjoy a general acceptance in an Islamic society.” — Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

The acceptance of a legislation formulated by humans means a preference of the humans’ limited knowledge and experiences to the divine guidance: “Say! Do you know better than Allah?” (2:140)…. For this reason, the call for secularism among Muslims is atheism and a rejection of Islam. Its acceptance as a basis for rule in place of Shari’ah is downright riddah [apostasy]….” — Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

We Muslims believe that Allah is the sole Creator and Sustainer of the Worlds…. If they do not [observe His injunctions and to judge according to them], then they commit kufr [unbelief], aggression, and transgression.” — Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

There have never been any effective democracies in the Islamic world.

The idea that human beings can replace God as legislators is obnoxious to classical Islamic thought and to modern Islamist convictions. Men and women do not choose how to live: God has been there first.

Several of the ECFR’s own pronouncements indicate an unwillingness to compromise with European norms.

“The Shari’ah is for all times to come, equally valid under all circumstances. The Muslim insistence on the immutability of the Shari’ah is highly puzzling to many people, but any other view would be inconsistent with its basic concept.” — Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

The European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR) plays an important role in the Fiqh al-‘Aqalliyyat (“Jurisprudence for Minorities”) world. It is now based in Dublin, having been founded in London in 1999 by the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe. Apart from issuing fatwas (principally those of leading Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi), it aims to supervise the education in Europe of local imams, to bring together Muslim scholars living in Europe, to resolve issues that arise on the continent (and UK) while operating with strict respect for shari’a law (which implies there should be no compromise), and to establish itself as an approved authority wherever Muslims live as minorities. This latter aim would suggest that the ECFR might one day possess an authority that would override that of local and national shari’a councils, and its members would expect to be the first and perhaps only voice to which parliaments and parliamentary bodies would lend an ear in their deliberations on how to treat their Muslim minority communities.

Despite the claim of the ECFR and other bodies involved in guidance for Muslims living outside Islamic jurisdiction to work towards a modus vivendi with Western governments, laws and cultural norms, the members of the ECFR nevertheless tend to approach this challenge in a way that can make the rapprochement problematic. Two matters engage much of their attention, namely secularism and democracy. Al-Qaradawi has spoken and written clearly on these. In one of his books, he separates Christian and Muslim beliefs:

Ten days ago, a lunatic drove a stolen car through Melbourne’s Bourke Street Mall, killing five people and grievously injuring many more. You might have read about the incident or perhaps saw footage on the telly, and no doubt found the carnage quite distressing. Well, rest easy, fret no more. The experts say such concern is misplaced, that you are prey to an irrational emotionalism and, really, all things considered, you would do well to set aside any interest in seeing reform of the court system, which days earlier granted the alleged killer’s bail request and turned him loose to do his worst.

They aren’t actually saying that, of course, not in as many words and not about that particular episode. The blood in Melbourne’s CBD is still too fresh, bystanders’ phone-camera pictures of shattered prams and a dying infant too vivid in memory for the rationalisations to begin in earnest. But that’s their logic all the same, applied in the interim to terrorism of the more conventional kind. Terrorists, as the New York Times informs us in regard to Donald Trump’s latest executive order (emphasis added), needs to be regarded with a nuanced eye

… 123 people have been killed in the United States by Muslim terrorists since the 2001 attacks — out of a total of more than 230,000 killings, by gang members, drug dealers, angry spouses, white supremacists, psychopaths, drunks and people of every description. So the order addresses, at most, 1/1,870th of the problem of lethal violence in the United States. If the toll of 9/11 is included, jihadis still account for just more than 1 percent of killings.

See, nothing to worry about whatsoever, not from the more ardent sons of Allah nor, by extension of the above logic, from ice-addled madmen racing down footpaths at 100kph. Some 300-odd Victorians died on the state’s roads in 2016, so those recent five deaths must be viewed, as the NYT might put it, as an insignificant dollop — “just more than 0ne percent” — of snuffed-out lives.

One percent? It’s no more than shrinkage, really, just a few random and statistically irrelevant souls denied the opportunity to fulfill actuarial expectations. So why worry about it? Why get upset when the courts indulge perils to public safety and allow them to slide back into the driver’s seat? And by the same token, why bother to note Islam’s affinity for bloody mayhem when it is so much more fun to perform a little mathematical sleight of hand and denounce Donald Trump for restricting the access to his homeland of those hailing from hotbeds of Islamist sentiment? If you start counting the jihadis’ victims only from September 12, 2001, as does the NYT, it gets even better. Why, they haven’t killed hardly anyone at all!

LONDON—Prime Minister Theresa May, whose office heralded a meeting last week with President Donald Trump as a diplomatic success, is facing pressure at home over her efforts to strengthen ties with the new U.S. administration.

On Monday, Mrs. May said an offer to Mr. Trump for a state visit still stands, despite a petition signed by 1.3 million people calling for its cancellation in the wake of his restrictions on immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. Hundreds of people later protested Mr. Trump’s clampdown outside Mrs. May’s official Downing Street residence.

“The United States is a close ally of the United Kingdom,” Mrs. May said during a visit to Ireland where she stood by the invitation. “We work together across many areas of mutual interest and we have that special relationship between us.”

The British leader has stood out as the most prominent in Europe to reach out to the U.S. leader, as she seeks new trade opportunities in advance of the U.K.’s exit from the European Union. She has been cheered by supporters who say she is doing what is best for Britain, but opponents have criticized her as cozying up to a leader they see as unsavory.

Mrs. May initially declined to condemn Mr. Trump’s executive order, which was announced Friday just hours after she became the first foreign leader to hold talks with the president in the White House. Her office later said it disagreed with the ban. CONTINUE AT SITE

WASHINGTON—Iran staged a missile test launch, U.S. officials said Monday, posing a possible violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions and an early challenge to the Trump administration’s campaign pledge to confront Tehran.

U.S. defense officials, who confirmed the test, declined to identify its specific date, location or range. But Israel’s government and U.S. senators demanded Monday that the U.N. impose new financial sanctions on Iran in response.

Iran’s government is believed to have conducted nearly a dozen ballistic-missile tests since a landmark nuclear agreement between world powers and Tehran was implemented a year ago. Although the estimated timing was indefinite, U.S. officials suggested the latest test happened over the weekend.

“Iran again defied #UNSC resolutions with missiles tests,” Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, said in a Twitter message on Monday. “The international community again [must not] bury its head in the sand in the face of Iranian aggression.”

The White House and State Department said they were investigating the alleged Iranian launch and gauging whether it violated international law.

The U.N.’s language prohibiting Tehran from developing ballistic missiles was softened under the nuclear deal, which was completed in mid-2015. The U.N. resolution now says the Security Council is against Iran developing missiles, but no longer explicitly bans it.

“We’re aware of reports that Iran conducted a medium-range ballistic missile test in recent days,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. “We are, however, well aware of and deeply troubled by Iran’s longstanding provocative and irresponsible activities and we call on Iran to cease such provocations.”

A diplomat at Iran’s mission to the U.N. declined to comment on Monday.

President Donald Trump was a sharp critic of the Iran nuclear deal during last year’s campaign and has suggested he may seek to renegotiate its terms. Many of his top national-security aides, including Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, have said they would seek to aggressively constrain Iran’s military operations in the Persian Gulf and in such countries as Syria and Iraq.

Trump administration officials have played down the possibility of unilaterally scrapping the nuclear deal. But Republicans in Congress have been drafting new sanctions against Iran, particularly targeting its elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. CONTINUE AT SITE