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Iraqi religious scholars protest assassinations of sheikhs and imams
![[Karim Sahib/AFP/Getty Images] Next Friday, the Council of Religious Scholars will hold a special sermon at Bilal bin Rabah mosque.](/cocoon/meii/images/2010/08/04/100804-feature-2-photoAP.jpg) [Karim Sahib/AFP/Getty Images] Next Friday, the Council of Religious Scholars will hold a special sermon at Bilal bin Rabah mosque. |
The Council of Religious Scholars in Fallujah launched a campaign last week to protest the recent assassinations of sheikhs and imams in the province.
The campaign involves holding Friday prayers in only one Fallujah mosque. Sermons will denounce terrorism, urge citizens not to cooperate with terrorists, and stress the importance of assisting Iraqi security forces in their war against terrorism.
The Council started the campaign last week after two prominent religious scholars were assassinated on July 28th. Sheikh Ehsan al-Rawi and Sheikh Mustafa al-Ani were killed by an improvised explosive device planted in their vehicle after they left a mosque in central Fallujah.
The initial investigations "show the involvement of elements operating under the umbrella of al-Qaeda in Iraq in the assassination of the two sheikhs and other religious scholars", according to Anbar police chief Maj. Gen. Bahaa al-Karkhi,
"The terrorists see in clerics' opinions, ideas, and appeals the biggest real threat against them. This is because Iraqis believe in the sermons of clerics who have started to focus on terrorism and combating it, and to urge the people to cooperate with security forces in this regard," al-Karkhi said.
According to the Council's reports, more than 20 clerics were assassinated in different cities across Iraq this year.
"The series of assassinations against religious scholars in Fallujah, Ramadi, Mosul, and Baqubah shows that the perpetrator is trying to ignite fitna among Iraqis. However, this will not happen," said Sheikh Sohaib al-Jubouri, khatib of al-Akhwa al-Saleheen mosque in Fallujah.
"The terrorist operations that targeted clerics backfired on the killers," al-Jubouri said. "The insistence of clerics on exposing the crimes of terrorists, calling for reconciliation, love, and freedom between citizens, and also on saying that religion is for God and homeland is for everyone, has become even stronger than before."
According to Council spokesman Sheikh Abdullah al-Muhsin, the Council decided to close all the mosques in the city on Fridays, except one mosque where the prayers will be held. The goal is to gather the greatest number of citizens from different cities across Anbar province in one place to encourage unity.
"The decision came in response to the treacherous, cowardly terrorist attacks that reveal the dirtiness and baseness of those straying groups in killing the religious scholars who reject terrorism and call for security," al-Muhsin said.
Last week, Friday prayers were held at the Grand Mosque in central Fallujah, where thousands of worshippers filled the mosque and many gathered on the surrounding streets and prayed there.
"The sermon focused on the terrorists' goals in killing non-extremist religious scholars who call for establishing peace and security, combating terrorists, standing against them, and thwarting their plans," al-Muhsin said. Sheikh Mohammed Matar, imam and khatib of al-Badawi mosque, gave the sermon at the Grand Mosque. "In targeting the scholars who do not approve of their acts, the criminals find an opportunity to wreak havoc in Fallujah and drag it back to its former condition," al-Badawi said in his sermon. "However, this will not happen, as Fallujah today is not like the Fallujah of yesterday."
Ghassan Farhan, 43, a taxi driver in Fallujah, said residents are listening to religious leaders and turning against terrorists.
"They have killed children, sheikhs, women, teachers, politicians, and poor citizens," Farhan said. "Today, the turn of clerics, who are birds for love and peace, has come. Everyone wept for the two sheikhs and vowed revenge against the terrorists."
The Friday (August 6th) service will be held at Bilal bin Rabah mosque.
Reader Comments
Those who kill the Sunni scholars are the Shia and Rafida, not Al-Qaeda… May God curse the Rafida, and we do not believe their lies or political deception. They are primarily the enemy of the Sunnis… Their fabricated political stories and dirty conspiracies against the Sunnis in Iraq have been exposed.
O Sharif… because the accomplished fact did not please you, you want each one to harm the other. By God, it looks like you are very “honorable man”.
The Prophet has said the truth, peace be upon him; that an unjust ruler is better than an ongoing fitna.
There is no power except with God. Islam is the religion of love and cooperation.
The clergy can play a key role in fighting the terrorist ideology and keeping it away from the Muslim youth. The greatest evidence of this is what the clergy in Iraq has done, when they took a unified stance in the face of terrorist thought, despite its continuous attempts to sow the seeds of sectarian dissension and spreading the culture of Takfir and Salafism, and supporting one sect at the expense of the other. However, the moderate religious voice was stronger, and it succeeded in dominating the situation and fighting the terrorists and their thoughts and stopping their spread. Hence, I believe that if the clergy in the Muslim countries had fought the terrorist thought and ideology, we would soon witness the end of the terrorists’ thoughts and organization. That is because Al-Qaeda depends on persuasion and implanting a different religious culture called Salafism, through which it gives the impression that the religion is in danger and that there must be a group that defends it by force. They also try to make the youth believe that he belongs to this selected group which God the Almighty has chosen. Therefore, the young man who does not have anyone to advise him to stay away from these thoughts will be lost in their maze.
Were it not for the moderate religious scholars, terrorist acts, takfiri ideology and sectarianism would not have ended in Iraq. Indeed, clerics have calmed citizens from all sects and made them aware that these acts wanted to harm Muslims and ignite sectarianism among them. This can be done through killing, bombing, displacing, and kidnapping. Thus, I think that clerics have assumed their role as clerics, scholars, and intellectuals in preventing terrorism and its ideology from intruding into Iraqis’ minds. This has helped Iraq regain its security stability and has led to the assassination of many clerics by the terrorists of al-Qaeda. The latter has killed a lot of sheikhs and religious scholars in Iraq and mainly in Ramadi, because they have stood against terrorism and the terrorists.
Why should we accuse Al-Qaeda and not accuse any other organization, such as the Badr Corps – Al-Quds Corps – Al-Mehdi – Intelligence – Iran – Syria and many other parties that have an interest in killing Sunni scholars? We should not forget that Al-Qaeda is also Sunni.
I have a question: are all those making comments living inside Iraq? Also, they all say that Al-Qaeda is the one responsible, as if they speak on behalf of the Pentagon.
The cowardly terrorists have killed a large number of innocent people, along with their continuous efforts to spread the culture of bloodshed and beheading. The most dangerous step followed by those vermin is sectarianism, as they have blown up a lot of worshipers and innocent people. They have also killed many religious scholars in a deliberate way, through which they wanted to spread the spirit of chaos, murder, destruction and civil war in Iraq.
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