Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, President of the World Union of Muslim Scholars, has called for al-Jihad in Syria against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, calling for supplying Syrian men by arms and support.
Al-Qaradawi revealed that al-Assad had asked
Khaled Meshaal, Hamas Leader, to criticize him –Qaradawi-, but Mashaal refused
what undermined their relation.
Through his Friday sermon- Salat- in Omar bin
Khattab mosque in Doha, Qatar, Qaradawi said: ''I call on all Muslims in
everywhere to support and help their brothers in Syria, We can't let our
brothers and sisters are being killed and we are watching.''
He denounced the silence of Muslims in the face
of tens of thousands of Shia fighters in Syria.
''It is not reasonable to let our brothers in
Syria, the thousands upon thousands that marched them from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon,
and the country's Shiites from everywhere to fight the Sunnis.'' He said.
He continued: all of his own ability, the coach
to fight, who knows how to resist these killers, and how it hits the sword and
gun, he has the ability to resist these and find a way accessible to them, must
go.
Qaradawi criticized Russia, Hezbollah Iran, and
anyone who stands with the regime of Bashar al-Assad against the Syrian people,
saying, and ''Muslims should know that all that the Russians are the enemies of
Muslims, the Russians fought the Muslims from the first day with their weapons
in Syria, besides the men from Iran to Lebanon''.
The Telegraph View of Qaradawi's Call for Jihad
Yusef al-Qaradawi, who is
based in Qatar and has been a leading voice supporting the Arab Spring, warned
that Iranian Shia were trying to "eat" Sunni Muslims, who are a
majority in the Muslim world.
He referred to Alawites,
the followers of the Muslim sect to which President Bashar al-Assad of Syria
belongs, as being "worse infidels than Christians or Jews". He also
used the deliberately contemptuous term "Nusayris" when talking about
them.
He was particularly
critical of the roles played by Iran, which is largely Shia, and the Lebanon
Shia militia Hizbollah whose name translates as Party of God but which he
called "Party of Satan", in supporting the Assad regime.
"There is no common
ground between the two sides because the Iranians, especially conservatives,
want to eat the Sunni people," he said.
The Syrian opposition is
dominated, like Syria itself, by Sunni Muslims, but also includes a number of
Christians, Alawites and other minorities.
However, Alawite militias
loyal to the Assads have been responsible for sectarian attacks on Sunni
villages, while there are also increasing reports of sectarian attacks by
militant Sunni jihadists, many of whom regard the Shia and Alawites as
heretics.
In recent days, a number of
Shia shrines have been attacked and desecrated in rebel-held territory,
including the tombs of Ammar ibn Yasir in Raqqa and of Hujr bin Uday al-Kindi
near Damascus.
Alawite leaders have openly
called for Sunni areas to be "cleansed" - coinciding with attacks by
Alawite militias on civilian Sunni towns near Baniyas which killed 300 people.
The Muslim Brotherhood,
though a Sunni, Islamist movement that has given birth to a number of jihadist
offshoots, has been held up as a "moderating" force within Arab
Spring countries with which the West "can do business".
Egypt has a Muslim
Brotherhood president, while the coalition government in Tunisia is led by a
Brotherhood-linked organisation backed by Dr Qaradawi.
Dr Qaradawi himself, who is
Egyptian by birth but has lived in Qatar for many years and is regarded as a
key factor in the active role the Qatari royal family has played in backing the
Arab Spring uprisings with arms and money, has a controversial record in the
West.
However, his latest
comments, made in a mosque in Qatar on Friday, go beyond his previous political
sermons. He himself acknowledged he had become more radical. "People
involved in reconciliation between the sects... said that I used to be the one
calling for reconciliation and doctrinal unity. They asked why I don't take up
that call again.
"Well, I called for
reconciliation but I found it did not bring the sects closer. They benefited
from it and we failed to take advantage."
He also apologised for his
past words in favour of Hizbollah. "The Shia deceived me," he said.
"I was less mature than the Sunni scholars who were aware of the truth of
that party."
He said Sunni Muslims
around the world should not wait for the West to help the rebel cause against
the "Nusayris", the Iranians and "the party of God".
"They are the party of Satan, the party of the tyrant," he said.
"The party of God does not kill Muslims, and these people draw close to
God by killing Muslims."
The war in Syria has split
the region largely along sectarian lines, with Sunni Gulf and North African
states largely supporting the rebels, and Shia Iran and Shia communities in
Lebanon and Iraq supporting the regime.
The city of Tripoli in
northern Lebanon has already seen fighting between Sunni and Alawite districts,
while there has been a rise in sectarian violence in Iraq where many Sunnis
have tribal links to Syria but the government represents the majority Shia
community and is close to Iran.
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