* In 2004, Dr. Youssef Al-Qaradawi established an entity under the name “The International Union of Muslim Scholars” and headed it until 2014, when he was replaced by Dr. Ahmed Raissouni, who submitted his resignation from the presidency of the Union last month in the wake of controversial statements about his country’s relationship with Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania .
* The Union, which is based in the Qatari capital, Doha, is considered the intellectual arm of the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, where a large number of well-known sheikhs of the group gather, headed by Qaradawi.
* The “Islamic Charter of the International Union of Muslim Scholars”, which was written by Al-Qaradawi, represents the founding document of the union, where it was stated in its preface that: Under his direction, its members act as belonging to it.
* The charter deals with many important intellectual issues, including the issue of atonement and “apostasy,” in which it is stated that the union adopts a moderate vision, which is: to the enemies of Islam).
* He adds: (And if takfir is permissible with its evidence, then it should be for the species and not for individuals, so it is said: Whoever says such-and-such is an infidel, and whoever does such-and-such is an infidel, and whoever denies such-and-such is a disbeliever.. After a confrontation, investigation and scrutiny, all suspicions are removed from him, and only the judiciary can do this.
* Hence we say: Giving the common people the right to judge a person for apostasy, then condemning him to deserve the punishment, defining it as murder and nothing else, and implementing that relentlessly, carries a severe danger to people’s blood, money and honor, because this requires that the ordinary person – who He does not have the knowledge of the people of fatwa, nor the wisdom of the people of the judiciary, nor the responsibility of implementation – three powers in his hand – in other words he accuses, judges and is executed, he is the fatwa, the judiciary and the police all).
* It is clear from the above hadith that the Union does not reject “atonement” in principle, as it adopts a position that supports the punishment of the apostate in this world with death, but says that this punishment must be carried out through the “judicial”, which is a strict Salafi position that differs even from the positions it took Some Muslim Brotherhood leaders such as Dr. Hassan al-Turabi and Professor Rashid Ghannouchi, who said that there is no worldly punishment for an apostate in Islam.
* Ghannouchi supports “freedom of belief” and that a person has the right to enter or leave Islam with complete freedom, and in this regard he says: (I opposed every way to compel people to any matter and raised a thorny issue in some citizens, which is what is called apostasy, meaning that the mission of the state To limit people’s freedom of belief.If the principle of no compulsion in religion is agreed upon, then I defended the principle of freedom in both directions: the freedom to enter and leave religion because there is no meaning for a religion based on compulsion, the Islamic nation has no need for a hypocrite who covers disbelief and shows faith and Islam because he did not Its description is reinforced by such addition).
* As for Dr. Al-Turabi, he said in this regard: (Faith is a personal matter of individuality, between the Muslim and his Lord, and there is no way to have guardianship over people in this regard, as we do not know what souls hide, and disbelief in language is covering up, that is, covering the instinct. The Messenger was living. In a society in which there are non-Muslims and non-religious people, and he did not take the initiative to exclude them or turn people against them, then faith or unbelief is a subjective matter, and there is no way to compel people, or push them to adopt a belief).
* And when Al-Turabi was asked the following question: What is your position on those who say apostasy and the establishment of the hadd punishment on the apostate? He replied, “This is nonsense. There is no ruling for an apostate in Islam, in the Qur’an and Sunnah, and belonging to or departing from the religion is a personal matter that others have nothing to do with.”
* It seems clear that the Union’s position on the issue of apostasy opens the door wide to expiation and killing, because those who decide on apostasy do not greatly abuse the judiciary and do not recognize it because in their view it is not based on the legal basis as they understand it, which is what we witnessed in the assassination of the Egyptian thinker Faraj. Fouda and the attempt to liquidate the late international writer Naguib Mahfouz and others.
* The well-known Brotherhood member, Dr. Mahmoud Mazrouah, professor of faith at Al-Azhar University, issued a fatwa on the assassination of Fouda, and it was implemented by two gunmen belonging to the Islamic Group organization. Mazroua said that he received a call from young men claiming to belong to one of the Islamic groups, and they wanted to consult him in an urgent matter, so he set an appointment for them at one of the gas stations in Cairo, and met them in an inner room. They asked him: “What is the ruling on an apostate?” He replied: “Kill him.” Then they asked him: “And if the ruler does not kill him?” He replied emphatically: “The ruling on killing him will be on the necks of the general Muslims!”
* In his testimony before the court, Mazrouah said that (Faraj Fouda announced his rejection of the application of Islamic law, and he put himself and recruited her as a preacher and defender against the ruling by what God has revealed.. He used to say: I will not let Sharia be applied as long as I have a pulsating sweat.. He used to say: On my body.. Such a person is an apostate according to the consensus of the Muslims, and the matter does not require a body to control his apostasy.
* As for Muhammad Al-Ghazali, he said that “Faraj Fouda, with what he said and did, was in the judgment of the apostate, and the apostate wastes blood, and the guardian is responsible for implementing the hadd, and that the accusation for which the young men standing in the cage should be held accountable is not murder, but rather it is the abuse of power. in the application of the limit.
* So, in the best case (from the point of view of the fatwa authors) the killers will be tried for sedition over power and not assassination, and from here we find that the position of the Union is not much different from the position of these, as it does not negate the principle of atonement (atonement of species) and believes in killing the apostate, which is a position Many Muslim scholars and thinkers disagree with him.
Quoted from Al Hurra
