the Speech of Mr. Mouaz Al Khatib and his statment about al-Qaeda
Islam and Transitional Justice Conference
Turkey 15th April
Peace and blessings and mercy of God be upon you,
All praises is due to Allah, and peace and blessings upon his last messenger Muhammad, May Allah bless you all. Here I would like to thank all Islamic leagues for making this blessed effort which is a necessary step for a mature and a healthy society.
I start with the words of God “Allah commands justice, charity and giving to relatives, and forbids what is evil, indecent and obscene. He admonishes you so you may remember.” 90 Surat An nahl
I want to speak frankly… It is our duty to people that we do not oppress them and to maintain their trust. And as part of that trust, their affair should be handled with the highest standards of justice, from the individual rights to the rights of the state to the rights of civilization. Let me remind you of the words of Ibn Tayymiyyah: “God gives victory to a disbelieving but just state, and not to a believing but unjust state” As for Ibn Al Qayyim, he said, “Al Sharia’a is all justice and mercy, and any matter that moves away from justice to injustice, and from mercy to corruption, becomes outside of Shariah even if it is argued to becoming from it”…
There are many points of strength for nations that we skip without realizing the importance. And here I will mention the speech of the scholar Imam Muslim when referring to the book of “The afflictions” he said: “I heard the prophet say: “The day of Judgment will not come until the Romans are the majority of the people” Some people replied “Watch what you are saying”, Amr ibn al Aas was there and said: “If you said what you said then there is four characteristics amongst them”- These are from the pillars of Nations and stable states- “They are the most forbearing during tribulation, the fastest to recover after a calamity, quick to return after defeat, and the kindest to the poor and vulnerable, and a fifth: they are the most impervious against leaders’ oppression.”…These are the pillars of a strong nation whether it was a believing nation or not.
And now brothers and sisters there are grave challenges that lay ahead of us in the face of a reckless and oppressing regime, and in the face of several infringements due to the circumstances our people face, this matter requires us to exert effort to re-control the situation. There are many people who have been pushed towards some kind of project, focusing on the problem partially, this indicates their lack of awareness but also indicates great sincerity, and it is our obligation towards them to advise them and discuss what is the best way.
As you know, many Shariah courts have been established, motivated by their desire to protect the rights of people, however many problems have surrounded this issue and we will speak about some of them briefly…
I met someone a few days ago, he said to me: There was one of the courts that passed a death sentence for a woman. I said “Oh dear God, why did that happen?” He said “She had admitted adultery, and she is married” So I said “And do you think that this is the Shariah punishment (for this case)?” He said “Yes” I said to him “Do you not know that the Shariah punishments are not applied during war? Are they applied in places of war?” He said “No” I said, “Are you not in a war against injustice now? This is one point against you.
A second point, does the Shariah law become applicable without a governor, a state or authority.” He said “No” I said, “With what right did this matter happen?
And the third point, could you not find for her a way out using this great prophetic law that says “avoid punishments with the presence of uncertainties” And did you not say to yourself: this oppressive regime has drowned the people in wells of corruption which has lead some of them to infringe their high morals and what they were raised upon from honor and dignity? Could you not find anything in all of those points?” So he struck his head with his palm, and I said to him “Why do you not commit to and consult the scholars who are more qualified than you ability wise, knowledge wise and experience wise in these matters. This is not to undermine you, but for the sake of people’s life that we are entrusted”.
There are many matters that we need to talk about with complete openness, and especially as we are amongst you, dear respected and distinguished scholars, and so long as the people are listening and spreading the news, we must emphasize for a second time the aims of shariah amongst each other, but not the superficial aspects rather the deep ones.
When the year of the famine came, a few workers were brought by their employer to Omar Ibn al Khattab after they had stolen from him to punish them. The employer asked him “Cut off their hands, as according to the Shariah”. Omar said to them: “Why did you steal from him?” they replied: “he (the employer) doesn’t give us our rights” Omar said to the employer: “Give them their rights” and left them. Later, they came a second time and the employer again said “punish them as they have stolen” Omar asked them about this, and they said, “He did not give us our rights” So Omar said to their employer “if they come a third time, it will be you who will have his hand cut off”.
This is the core of Islam, and Islam doesn’t punish anyone before their rights are fully given to them. And God is addressing all of humanity when He said: “…And we never punish a people unless We send them a messenger.” And if there is no argument against them then there is no punishment applied.
Therefore dear brothers and sisters, we have a momentous task ahead of us, and if the respected audience allows me to speak on a matter with the utmost sincerity, just as there is a revolution in our lands against the oppression and corruption, in my opinion there must be a revolution in religious thinking which will raise Islam once again to its great humanitarian horizons as it once was. We have drowned ourselves in small details and fine print, and these are important matters which need to be understood by certain specialists, not by the whole of the nation as this is something sterile and useless. And as proof, Imam Al Ghazali said: “If people see a scholar wearing a ring of gold or a robe of silk, they call him a heretic (haram). However if he eats from the plate of the tyrant rulers or backbit the people, they do not blame him, because maybe we are all involved in this act, but with certainty if everyone had worn gold rings and silk robes then this is less in the eyes of God than one episode of backbiting.
Why did the laws of Shariah become? Why did the small become big, and the big small? While we understand that every matter has its place.
And I will say with full respect to our teachers and scholars that the way religion is being taught today has become defected. And as Shaykh Bakkar said: “There are some communal obligations that are not performed because people are limited by focusing on less important things, even if significant. The Shariah law is the Shariah law and people should adhere to it, but there are laws within it that are related to nations. There are communal obligations, for example removing oppression from a nation, that were not served right the way the rule for men wearing gold was served.
There needs to be a revolution in religious thinking, and in summary, this revolution’s goal will be to free humanity. All the prophets came to honor humanity, and maybe we strangled it with small details.
An inversion has happened in that people are more concerned about a law related to a fly’s blood on their clothes than the blood of the populations being spilled and spilled. We have inevitably become drowned in things we could have initially avoided of being drowned in, in this way.
What is unfolding in our country is an unprecedented level of oppression, and the idea of a transitional justice system is a wise and reasonable idea. It is everybody’s right to receive a fair and just trial, otherwise it will lead to chaos and anarchy, with everyone trying to get their own justice at the expense of the rights of others. This should never happen under any circumstance. Some brothers think that taking examples directly out of the Koran and the Sunnah is something easily reached by anyone, and we will say yes to anyone who has the foundational principles making them qualified.
But even major nations, for example the Ottoman Empire, had some difficulty in how to apply rules, so a regular judicial magazine was established by the state as a way of legalising the legislation. Not as a way of surpassing the Shariah but as a way to ease matters technically in order to facilitate the work of the judge in similar cases.
Shariah should be taken as whole, not just small parts at the expense of the rest, just as our teachers taught and other wise scholars related in the past. The Shiarah is as a human body that isn’t taken in parts but rather is taken as a whole, producing one image.
The oppression and corruption in our country are unprecedented, and massive challenges we will face us soon, which include bringing people to justice and deliver people’s rights. We must develop a clear plan to avoid riots and clashes and certain criminals must be prosecuted. I mentioned to some of my brothers few days ago that I can find the ability to forgive anything except those who torture and rape women and abuse children; I do not find myself able to forgive them ever.
There is no doubt that a fair law must be written in order to prosecute every criminals. There should not be revenge or non-responsible reactions despite how angry we feel! If we abandoned our discipline we would have caused a lot of uncontrolled destruction. The Shariah, the logic and the common sense agree that there must be a law to follow. This law can be taken from the forgiving Shariah, and it can rule our life depending on the interests and the situation. This has been already established by the scholars particularly the scholars of this Islamic league, along with judges and lawyers who have put a tremendous amount of effort to set things clear.
I would like here to send a special thanks to Mr. Haitham al Maleh who sacrificed so far over 60 years of his life to defend the rights of people and I ask God to reward him the best in this life and the life after.
Dear brothers and sisters, I would like to highlight an important issue that might not have a direct relation to this meeting title here but it actually has a relation to justice in a clear way. We heard few days ago several declarations from different parties who tried to gain custody over part of our youth. Therefore, I think it is our duty to be fair with them without letting anybody manipulate them or lie to them. I hereby announce clearly that “We reject all outsider ideologies that come from unknown sources and, specifically, we reject ideology of Al-Qaeda”. This ideology is not appropriate as far as we are all concerned. We have always been, in Syria, the source of moderate Islam. Syria brings great people like Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Al Qayyim, Shaykh Mhyuddin Ibn Arabi, Imam al Ghazali and Ibn Katheer. We are not in need for unknown sources to teach us our own religion! Our scholars are here and our religious references still present.
I find it my own responsibility to address the youth and let them know that some parties plotting against them. Furthermore, I would like to let those words reach all Syrian, no matter what the price is, and especially our brothers who are part of Jabhat al Nusra:
Al Qaeda in Iraq has three divisions, two big divisions and a small one. The first big division was fighting the Soviet in Afghanistan and they started “Jihad” with the martyr Abdullah Azzam. However, “Jihad” reached to the point where many different parties, including tens of Intelligence agencies, penetrated the main body. Then, without going into the details, Abdullah Azzam was killed because he had truly a balanced point of view that honestly defends the rights of people and he wanted to raise the banner of just and right Islam against oppression. This division became hugely penetrated though!
The second division, a small one, was directly connected to the Syrian Intelligence Services, and one of their known representatives was “Abu Al Qa’qa” who gathered young men in Syria, especially in Aleppo, and took them to Iraq in order to train them under the name of Al-Qaeda. When this man was exposed, he run to Syria to avoid being killed, then he formed, in Damascus, a group of 50 people. However, he asked the Syrian intelligence to arrest all of them later once they discovered his real agenda and none of them were spared except for one young man, which I don’t know where he is now!
The third extremely dangerous division is, frankly, the big division of Al-Qaida in Iraq and that is connected to the Iranian intelligence. They support it and supervise its operations, which include assassinations of the finest amongst the Sunni Muslims in Iraq. This organization, under a supervision of the Iranian Intelligence, has killed whom the US forces didn’t kill.
Therefore, I would say to the youth, because it is our own responsibility to clarify things, there is a massive plot targeting you because you are the ones who defending the nation. I ask you for the sake of Allah, and now it is your decision and your responsibility, to cut all ties with this organization, Al-Qaeda, and their leaderships from the top to bottom. This is your decision and you will hold the full responsibly for it.
The second thing is to change your current name, Al-Nusra, no matter how difficult it may be, and you need to have clear leaders and sources that are affiliated to our known Syrian references.
The third thing is to remember your goal is to support people and help them achieve their rights and, at the same time, be a good representative of Islam in order to make people more closer to Allah. So you do not get into the details that are not priority for the time being, and maybe it is not requested by Shariah at all. You are welcome to call people to Allah with wisdom and a good example but be sure not to introduce yourself, and people around you, in minor things that have no priority! For example, one group has banned smoking! I honestly believe smoking is Haram but is this any priority now?! They have started to force women to wear veil! This matter is connected to peoples own personal convictions, God says: “There is no compulsion in religion”. Open-minded is required so I am just giving my own advice to whomever wants to listen and may Allah reward them, and whoever refuses then that is their own affair.
The final thing I want to mention covers three important points. The first one is related to the great Ommary mosque, of course “the killing of one person is more catastrophic in the eyes of God than the destruction of the Ka’ba”, however, the Ommary mosque as you already know has been destroyed and this is a serious issue that attacks our religion, our beliefs and our people. So I ask the legislative associations to make a formal complaint to UNESCO and to record this violation. This is a crime committed by the Syrian regime against history and culture.
The second point is my personal request from the scholars, for the sake of maintaining the rights of people, to establish a Syrian Higher Islamic-council that will have an elected Mufti. This council might help avoid juridical corruption or division. Here I can mention a nice example during the Ottoman Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries where being fluent in five foreign languages was a condition to be elected as Leader of the Scholars. We should follow such an example in our current situation.
The third point, despite our differences with Dr. Ramadan al Bouti, who is now between the hands of God, a crime has been committed; it is up to the religious associations and communities to bring to justice those responsible for the assassination. This can be done through filing an official request to the UN Security Council to carry out a criminal investigation to reveal the truth. Of course all the people of Syria are important but we want to reveal the truth about killing the man who spent all of his life defending this regime and then he was assassinated by this very regime in a treacherous way that does not keep any good or friendly ties with anyone.
I hope that God gives success to your event, may God bless you all and thank you and peace be upon you all.
