Sunni Clerics Declare Collaborating with ISIL Prohibited under Shari’ah*
By Hassan Al-Obaidi in Baghdad 2014-08-28
Iraqi volunteers in Baghdad register to fight alongside the security forces against ISIL. Sunni clerics in Anbar encouraged youth to support security forces in their fight against the group. [Ali al-Saadi/AFP]
Sunni clerics met in Anbar this week to urge Iraqis to support the security forces in their battle against the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL).
“Collaborating or dealing with ISIL elements is prohibited under shari’ah because it consolidates the continued project of killing and distorts the image of Islam,” the Council of Anbar Scholars and Preachers said in a statement issued following its meeting in Ramadi this week.
The statement, read by council spokesman Sheikh Hatem al-Dulaimi, described co-operation with the Iraqi army as a duty, “to spare bloodshed and to stop the series of crimes that have taken place in the country”.
“It also helps ward off sectarian strife which that gang tries to ignite in Iraqi society,” he said.
“ISIL is an aggressor that has nothing to do with any sect or divine religion,” al-Dulaimi added.
ISIL has distorted the image of Islam through its crimes and brutal false beliefs, said council member Sheikh Shaaban al-Obaidi, the imam of Haditha’s city mosque.
“Our religion is mercy and today ISIL turned it into violence, blood and terror,” he told Mawtani, noting that all Muslims must stand up for their faith in the face of these threats.
ISIL ‘should be expelled’
The clerics signed a statement to be distributed across Anbar during their meeting.
Islam is innocent of ISIL, which must be dealt with as a “force of aggression that occupies our land and should be expelled”, the statement said, adding that withholding any information about the group is prohibited under sharia.
“The fight against the group and its rejection by Sunnis will serve as a message to the rest of the sects and religions in Iraq” and will help avoid sectarianism, Ramadi mufti Sheikh Hameed Khalil told Mawtani.
All people should boycott and renounce ISIL, and co-operate with the Iraqi security forces in order to expel the group from their cities, he said.
“It also is forbidden to receive gifts of meat and vegetables, which ISIL said will be distributed to people,” he said. “This is because these are forbidden and mixed with the blood of innocent Iraqi citizens.
“Were it not for their terrorist acts, people would not have originally needed gifts or donations from them,” he added.
“Accepting ISIL means encouraging them and giving them a legitimacy they do not have,” Khalil said.
Iraqis must contact the security forces with any information they have on ISIL, he said, adding that “he who drags his feet or acts in a cowardly manner has participated in the killing of innocent people”.
A turning point in the battle
Anbar police chief Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Dulaimi said the clerics’ statement marked a turning point in the “war on terror”.
“Now there is no doubt these terrorist groups do not represent Sunnis or Islam, and ISIL no longer has a cover through which to move after it was excommunicated from our religion and our beliefs, when it was previously also expelled from our tribal society,” he told Mawtani.
Police are giving those misled by ISIL the chance to turn themselves in before September 5th, al-Dulaimi said.
They will be given a fair trial as well as a pardon if it is proven they did not carry out any murders or bombings, he added.
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