Author: Jeremy Reynalds
Publication: www.MensNewsDaily.com
Date: September 30, 2003
URL: http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/newswire/nw03/mnd/newswire093003.htm
A radical London-based Islamic sect
that described the September 11 hijackers as the "magnificent 19" is warning
all Muslims, particularly those in Iraq, not to offer support to either
the British or American troops in the region.
A so-called "fatwa," or Islamic
decree, issued by Omar Bakri Muhammad's self-titled Shariah Court of the
UK talks against offering "any support, morally or financially or militarily
or physically in their onslaught against Islam and Muslims in the region,
though they attempt to take the Muslims onto their side."
The document says that those Muslims
who do decide to offer help will become a legitimate target for the mujahideen(
Muslims who consider themselves warriors for the faith).
The document further reads, "Some
Muslims have been misled by other defeated deviant Muslims, who request
on behalf of the British government, for Muslims to join the British army
in their onslaught and crusade against Islam and Muslims. And a similar
example for some Muslims in America who have also started to join the US
army, and Allah ... forbids that.
He says, "O Believers, do not take
Jews and Christians as an alliance, they are only allies to each other,
and whosoever allies with them, he is one of them, and Allah does not guide
the oppressors."
According to the decree, any British
Muslim traveling to Muslim countries and aligning himself with British
and American troops against Muslims will be considered apostate.
The statement reads, "He is at war
with Islam and Muslim, and his life and wealth will have no sanctity. He
like the disbelievers is a clear enemy for Islam and Muslims and consequently
becomes a legitimate target for the Mujahideen, and if they die they will
die outside of the fold of Islam, and they will never be dignified in their
death nor buried with the Muslims."
The decree continues by asking Muslims
working as police spies or soldiers to "give up immediately their apostasy."
For those Muslims not willing to
do that, the decree writer promises a horrible fate. He writes, "One of
their deceptions is that they claim to be believers, yet they spy on Muslims
or they go abroad to fight them, or they report against them to the kuffar."
The document continues, "If they
claim to do so as no more than a job, we remind them of the saying of the
Prophet (saw) said "Whoever earns a bite of food by reporting or spying
on Muslims, Allah will feed him the equivalent in the hellfire, and whoever
wears clothes earning from spying against Muslims, Allah will clothe him
with hellfire."
The document claims that since the
"invasion" of Iraq, it has become clear that the "hidden agenda" of the
American government is the destruction of Islam and the redrawing of the
map of the region. That, the writer says, has been by the speeches of numerous
"American senators who did not keep it secret nor ambiguous."
The writer says that it is not a
surprise to learn that non believers "are planning to destroy Islam and
Muslims, because that is one of their main tasks, even though it is impossible
but what is a surprise is to see Muslims "going astray."
The writer says while these Muslims
are misled by those people who are impressed with the disbelievers, nobody
is impressed by them other than the ignorant. the unbelievers
He writes, "Part of their ignorance
and apostasy is that they ally with the disbelievers and join their forces,
and their being called 'British Muslim' as members of the British army.
They travel all the way, not to liberate Jerusalem but rather in order
to turn with the disbelievers to harm Islam and the Muslims, in Iraq, Afghanistan
and Palestine."
Omar Bakri Mohammed, the man behind
the pronouncement and Al-Muhajiroun, has been linked to British suicide
bombers in Israel and has also issued calls to overthrow the British government.
According to the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/
3142764.stm), Muhammad was blasted by Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission
for Racial Equality. Phillips said "extremists" like Muhammad and Abu Hamza
were using tension in the Middle East and after the terrorist attacks of
9/11 to further their own agendas and the sooner they are deported the
better it will be.
Phillips was referring to the British
Home Secretary's attempt to strip Hamza of British citizenship and deport
him to Egypt. There may be a similar deportation attempt made against Muhammad.
The BBC reported that Phillips also
said, "Every time Abu Hamza or Sheikh Omar do their thing in front of the
television cameras, Muslims suffer in dozens of places in this country
... They claim to be speaking on behalf of Muslims but they do things in
such a way that every time they speak, some Muslim somewhere else in Britain
gets it in the neck."
Muhammad's organization responded
to Phillips' statement in a press release, commenting the statement by
Trevor Phillips ... that Sheikh Abu Hamza and Sheikh Omar Bakri should
be deported from the UK and that their activities have led to Muslims being
attacked on British streets is not only foolish but also uncorroborated,
irresponsible and a reflection of the stance of this government quango
organisation's close ties with the Blair regime and its fascist foreign
policy in the Muslim world."
Muhammad was born in Aleppo, Syria,
in 1958 and grew up in a wealthy Muslim family, becoming a serious student
of Islam and the Koran. He received his B.A. in Shari'ah and the foundations
of Islamic law from Shari'ah University in Damascus, obtaining a master's
degree in Islamic jurisprudence from the University of Al-Imam Al-U'zaie
in Beirut.
According to the Middle East Media
Research Institute, Muhammad portrays himself as being the spokesman for
bin Laden's International Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders
and according to MEMRI has admitted that the organization raises funds
for the Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and is "in touch" with the Hizbullah.
According to MEMRI, Muhammad has
lived in London since 1985 and preaches at a number of London mosques.
He also routinely presents himself as a spokesman for the International
Islamic Front, which he describes as being the political wing of Osama
bin Laden's Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders.