The Syrian opposition's Islamic Council has elected Sheikh Osama Al-Rifa'i as the Grand Mufti of Syria, following the dismissal of the Grand Mufti position by Bashar al-Assad in a swoop on the Sunni majority stature and a move to enhance Shiism in the war-torn country, scholars said.
The spokesman for the council, Mutee Al-Bateen, in a video statement, said that the council decided to unanimously elect Sheikh Osama Al-Rifai to be the Grand Mufti of the Syrian Arab Republic, calling on the Syrian people to rally around its unified reference.
Al-Assad abolished the position of Mufti of the Republic last Monday.
The president issued legislative decree No. 28 stipulating the abolitionment of Article No. 35 of the law regulating the work of the Ministry of Endowments, according to which the Grand Mufti of the Republic is named.
No reasons were given for the decision, however, in so doing, Al-Assad strengthened the powers of a jurisprudential council within the Ministry of Endowments.
The decision effectively forces Syria's Grand Mufti Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun, the highest Islamic authority in Syria, into retirement. Hassoun had held the position since 2005 and has been known for his support for Al-Assad.
The fatwa is one of the pillars of the Syrian identity, so the scholars had to stand in the face of this attack on the identity of Syria. In order to preserve this historical position from the futility of the criminal gang, to restore matters to their historical record by keeping this position and returning the choice in it to the hands of the senior scholars and jurists of this country as it was before.
Al-Bateen said that no one dared to touch it until this sectarian gang took control of Syria, so it emptied it of its content and made it an appointment after it was an election from Senior scholars who deserve this position.''
Al-Rifai, 77, is the head of the League of Scholars of the Levant , the head of the Syrian Islamic Council, was born in Damascus, and graduated from Damascus schools and high schools. He joined the University of Damascus and studied Arabic language and its sciences at the Faculty of Arts, Department of Arabic Language, from which he graduated in 1971.
Assad's decree assigned the tasks the mufti was entrusted with, which are "setting the dates of the beginnings and endings of the lunar months … and declaring the consequent jurisprudential rulings related to Islamic religious rituals and worship," as well as "issuing fatwas… and laying down the foundations, standards, and mechanisms necessary to organise and control them."
Al-Bateen says that 'the conspiracy circles over this position were completed until this gang abolished it completely.
In 2016, Amnesty International published a report that revealed Hassoun was deputised by al-Assad to approve the execution of up to 13,000 inmates in Sednaya prison over a five year period. (Zaman, MEMO)
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