Category Archives: Yusuf al-Qaradawi

‘Qaradawi calls for Jews to be killed’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“He is rabidly Judeophobic. His sermons regularly call for Jews to be killed, along with ‘crusaders’ and ‘infidels’…. He has insisted that all Jews are responsible for Israel’s actions, and on Al Jazeera’s website stated: ‘There is no dialogue between us except by the sword and the rifle’.”

Who was responsible for this attack on Dr al-Qaradawi? Peter Tatchell? Brett Lock? The Alliance for Workers Liberty? The Worker Communist Party of Iran?

No, Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips in Front Page Magazine, 21 February 2005

Muslims on ijtihad and sharia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The survey asked some interesting questions which I haven’t often seen publicly reported before. They asked Muslim respondents whether they believed that ijtihad (interpretation) remains open – a key indicator of one’s attitude towards a more moderate or radical approach to religion: only 3% in Lebanon, 6% in Palestine, 5% in Egypt, 5% in Jordan, and 8% in Syria said that ijtihad was closed. Almost all Muslims surveyed thought that sharia should be a source of legislation, with almost two thirds in Egypt, Jordan and Palestine saying that sharia should be the only source of legislation. This suggests broad-based support for a moderate Islamism, with sharia viewed as mandatory but open to interpretation – essentially the position advocated by Yusuf al Qaradawi.”

The Centre for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan has just released a major study of Arab public opinion, Abu Aardvark reports.

Qaradawi not anti-semitic shock

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Middle East Media Research Institute, a right-wing organisation headed by a former colonel in Israeli intelligence, has become notorious for its distorted coverage of Middle East politics. Its speciality is to provide partial translations of articles and broadcasts from the Arab media in order to present Muslims in general, and opponents of the Israeli government in particular, in the worst possible light.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi has been a notable victim of MEMRI’s propaganda operation. In July 2004, at the time of Dr al-Qaradawi’s visit to London, MEMRI published a Special Report accusing him of acting as “a spiritual guide for many … Islamist organizations across the world, including supporters of Islamist terrorist organizations such as Al-Qa’ida”.

That same month, MEMRI approvingly quoted the article ‘Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi: Liberal or Extremist?’ by pro-US Arab journalist Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, which falsely accused Qaradawi of rejecting all dialogue with Jews.

However, a recent dispatch by MEMRI struggled hard to maintain the fiction that Qaradawi is a hate-filled anti-semite. Even MEMRI’s selective extracts from Qaradawi’s Al-Jazeera programme could not obscure the truth about his firm rejection of anti-semitism.

Perhaps Peter Tatchell, who in the November 2004 issue of Labour Left Briefing summarised Dr al-Qaradawi’s philosophy as “destroy the Jews – all of them”, will now be writing to the Sheikh to apologise?

Tatchell’s Islamic conspiracy theory

Posted on by Eddie Truman

“Peter Tatchell’s slander that I seem ‘willing to sacrifice gay rights if it is politically expedient to do so’ (Qaradawi not welcome, LLB, November 2004) shows the depths of the errors to which he has been dragged by his ‘Muslim-fundamentalist-plot-to-take-over-the-world’ conspiracy theory.”

Ken Livingstone writing in Labour Left Briefing, February 2005

Qaradawi and the tsunami

Posted on by Bob Pitt

As part of its mission to discredit Arabs and Muslims, in the aftermath of the tsunami disaster the Middle East Media Research Institute devoted much effort to accumulating quotations from Islamic leaders explaining the disaster as the result of God’s anger with sinners. One of these was Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

MEMRI’s reports were reproduced in the Times, which gave over a whole page to what it called Islamic “tsunami conspiracy theories“.

Of course, Muslims were not alone in offering a “wrath of God” explanation for the disaster. Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar, declared that the tsunami was an “expression of God’s ire with the world”, while one of his predecessors, Mordechai Eliahu, argued that it was a product of divine resentment at Sharon’s decision to pull out of Gaza. Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri, considered Israel’s leading Kabbalist rabbi, added that it was “not for naught that this place was hit, where many of our compatriots went to look for this-worldly lusts”.

But can you imagine the Times devoting a whole page to attacking Jewish views of the tsunami as a punishment for humanity’s sins? Obviously not, because this would rightly be construed as anti-semitic. But Muslims are considered fair game by the Murdoch press.

And not only the Murdoch press. Taking his inspiration from the Times piece, Peter Tatchell wrote a press release for Outrage! headed “Qaradawi says tsunami victims deserved to die“. Tatchell attacked Qaradawi as “a reactionary fundamentalist who says 150,000 people deserved to die because some of them were immoral and failed to observe his hardline interpretation of Islam”.

But Abu Aardvark challenged MEMRI’s summary of Qaradawi’s sermon.

He pointed out that, far from arguing that victims all deserved their fate, Qaradawi had stated that the tsunami presented a challenge to the faith of believers because “it took the honest and the wicked, the reverent and the licentious, the believers and the unbelievers alike”. Abu Aardvark concluded that “this does seem to be a case of MEMRI’s selective translation leaving readers with the wrong impression of his meaning”.

Abu Aardvark observed wearily that “rational discussions of Qaradawi seem to be virtually impossible these days. The demonization campaign seems to have worked, and people who really should know better just throw names around, casually equating Qaradawi with bin Laden and putting the most outrageous things in his mouth”.

In defence of militant secularism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“A strange alliance has arisen: from conservative members of the Muslim Association of Britain, the SWP, to London’s Mayor, all are in an uproar about ‘Islamophobia’. Ken Livingstone has taken it upon himself to criticise the French move to ban wearing ostentatious religious symbols in schools. He has also given lessons on religious freedom by defending a cleric, al-Qaradawi, who supports female genital mutilation. This bloc draws support from the mainstream of the Anglican Church and Prince Charles to, with rare exceptions, the bien-pensant pages of the Guardian.”

Andrew Coates in What Next? No.29

Dialogue with a man of peace

Posted on by Eddie Truman

Dialogue with a man of peace

Ken Livingstone

Tribune, 21 January 2005

PETER TATCHELL has spent six months denouncing me for meeting a person, Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is described by the Muslim Council of Britain, the main Muslim umbrella group in this country, as “the most authoritative Islamic scholar in the world”.

The fact that he has been so been vigorously supported in his campaign by newspapers like the Sun, the Star and the Daily Mail – which have never distinguished themselves by anything other than bigotry in relation to lesbian and gay rights – should have given Tatchell pause for thought.

As Mayor of London, I have a responsibility to meet the leaders of all of London’s many faiths and communities, irrespective of the fact that I disagree with them on particular issues.

Tatchell wages an unrelenting campaign, most recently in the 7 January Tribune, to paint Islam as a uniquely homophobic and reactionary religion. Yet I find that I disagree not only with Muslim leaders, with whom Tatchell seems to be obsessed, but also with Jewish, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Evangelical and other religious leaders on this issue.

Continue reading →

The Mayor of London defends Qaradawi

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The office of London Mayor Ken Livingstone has released a dossier defending his meeting with Yusuf al Qaradawi. It’s a hard hitting document which forcefully defends Qaradawi’s status as a moderate and takes to task the mayor’s critics for misrepresenting Qaradawi’s views. It offers considerable evidence of Qaradawi’s consistent appeals for dialogue with the West and his condemnations of terrorism, and defends him against charges of anti-Semitism.”

Abu Aardvark welcomes Ken Livingstone’s dossier.