C L O S E R

Isim organizes: Workshop Muslim Religious Authority in Europe

30 September 2005 - 1 October 2005

Venue: Leiden University, Spectrum room,

Plexus building, Kaiserstraat 25, Leiden

Convenors: Frank Peter & Elena Arigita

Organized in cooperation with Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO)

Current processes of institutionalization of Islam in Western Europe display some paradoxical features. Muslims and non-Muslims alike often emphasize the egalitarianism inherent in Islam. In recent years, however, discussions on who is entitled to claim religious authority have become an increasingly prominent feature of Europe�s Muslim communities. This phenomenon, which may be seen in part as a response to the political need for representative Muslim spokespersons, is at the same time challenged by processes of religious individualization and the diversification of the Muslim associational network. This workshop explores approaches able to capture the complex development of Muslim religious authority in the new Western European context.

Usually I don’t ‘do’ these kind of stories, but because I have worked with Mohammed Allach for a short time, I couldn’t resist it. He used to work in Gouda at the Nour mosque where I did my research and then left for another goal in his life: playing professional football. He hasn’t forgotten his involvement in social issues: BBC NEWS | Programmes | This World | Love bridges Dutch racial divide

In the famously tolerant Netherlands a multicultural wedding should not be anything exceptional, but as Mohammed and Sanne will tell you, things are not what they used to be.

“The killing of Van Gogh made a big impact on me,” says Mohammed, who is of Moroccan descent but was born in the Netherlands.

“For the first time, I didn’t feel at home here. It was really frightening.

“I got e-mails from Muslim women who’d been spat at in markets, even beaten. Their children too.”

One million of the Netherlands’ 16 million people are Muslim. Mohammed says that their further integration into Dutch society is the only way out of the current crisis.

“The Dutch should give young Moroccans better opportunities,” he says, but acknowledges that Moroccans too have to try harder.

Mohammed recently founded Moroquistars, an organisation aiming to improve understanding between white Dutch youths and young Moroccans, using sports events as a bridge.

Sanne quit her job as a marketing manager to run Mohammed’s foundation.

“It’s all a matter of engaging with each other,” says Sanne.

film-maker Theo van Gogh
Tensions rose after the death of film-maker Theo van Gogh

“Once you actually talk to Muslims, you’ll find often their values are pretty similar to ours.”

But it is a message that many Dutch are sceptical about.

At a party with Sanne’s former work colleagues the conversation is jolly until it turns to the issue of immigration.

“I have a friend at an employment agency,” says Sanne’s friend Els. “She tells me she’ll hire 100 Turks for factory work, but never Moroccans, because they are all lazy.”

“And what about the prisons?” asks another colleague. “All the inmates are dark skinned. I am not saying they are all Moroccans, but …”

A third colleague jumps in. “Most crimes are committed by Moroccans, that’s a fact.”

One issue that deeply worries the Dutch is the rise in Islamic fundamentalism.

It is close to home for Sanne and Mohammed.

Sanne’s sister Marlou was a teacher at an Islamic primary school five years ago when during a lesson a nine-year-old Muslim boy announced that he wanted to become a jet pilot “to bomb the Jews”.

It turned out that the boy had been shown a Hamas propaganda video during religion classes.

Meanwhile Mo’s team Venlo is doing well in the league.

They have secured a spot in the play-offs for promotion to the premiership.

The fans are happy, chanting “Allach is great, ole, ole!”

The local anthem affectionately puns on Mohammed’s family name and religion.

But Mohammed says that recent events have also led to serious racial abuse against Muslim footballers - including the use of an obscene term coined by Van Gogh himself.

“It’s all connected to what’s going on in the world,” says Mohammed. “It started with 9/11, then the Van Gogh killing. Islam is the subject.”

“Mixed emotions,” he says. “We did well in the league but not the play-offs.

“I am sad now, but in two days time I’ll be the happiest guy on earth.”

The wedding is exactly what Mo and Sanne had hoped for: multicultural, relaxed, everyone having fun.

The mayor says that seeing this young mixed couple get married fills him with hope for the future of the Netherlands.

In Time: TIME.com: Generation Jihad — Oct. 03, 2005 — Page 1

Well ‘generation jihad’ is a nice soundbite of course, but the article is not bad.

Posted Monday, Sep. 26, 2005
The last time Myriam Cherif saw her son Peter, 23, was in May 2004, when the two of them stood at the elevator on the fifth floor of the gritty public-housing project where they lived, just north of Paris. Myriam, 48, was born in Tunisia, moved to France when she was 8 and became a French citizen. Peter’s father, who died when the boy was 14, was a Catholic from the French Antilles in the Caribbean. But Peter took a different path. In 2003 he converted to Islam and became a devout Muslim. He took to wearing loose trousers and a long tunic instead of blue jeans and repeatedly told Myriam that she should wear the traditional Muslim head scarf. And then one day last spring, Peter told his mother he was heading off to Syria to study Arabic and the Koran.

Today Peter, one of five French citizens captured by U.S. forces in Iraq, is being held at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, family members say. More than a year since she last heard from her son, Myriam Cherif is still trying to understand how, in the streets and caf�s of Paris, Peter and other young Muslims like him were lured into giving up their lives in the West and pursuing jihad. “They saw aggressive, violent images on the Internet and asked questions about why Muslims were suffering abroad while European countries were doing nothing,” she says. “It’s like they set off a bomb in their heads.”

Generation Jihad suggests there are an awfull lot of them

Call it Generation Jihad–restive, rootless young Muslims who have spent their lives in Europe but now find themselves alienated from their societies and the policies of their governments. While the precise number of European jihadists is impossible to pinpoint, counterterrorism officials believe the pool of radicals is growing. Since 1990, the Muslim population in Europe has expanded from an estimated 10 million to 14 million. (Estimates of the number of Muslims in the U.S. range from 2 million to 7 million.) A 2004 estimate by the intelligence unit of French police found that about 150 of the country’s indexed 1,600 mosques and prayer halls were under the control of extremist elements. A study of 1,160 recent French converts to Islam found that 23% identified themselves as Salafists, members of a sect sometimes associated with violent extremism. In the Netherlands, home to 1 million Muslims, a spokesman for the Dutch intelligence service says it believes as many as 20 different hard-line Islamic groups may be operating in the country–some simply prayer groups adhering to radical interpretations of the Koran, others perhaps organizing and recruiting for violence. In London, authorities say, as many as 3,000 veterans of al-Qaeda training camps over the years were born or based in Britain.

Jihadi’s or non-jihadi’s many of these young muslims have the same frustrations:

Interviews with dozens of Muslims across Western Europe reveal a wide range of explanations for why so many are responding to the call of radical Islam. A common sentiment among members of Generation Jihad is frustration with a perceived scarcity of opportunity and disappointment at public policies that they believe target Muslims unfairly. Some lack a sense of belonging in European societies, which have long struggled to assimilate immigrants from the Islamic world. Many, in particular younger Muslims, suffer disproportionately from Europe’s high-unemployment, slow-growth economies. Some are outraged over the bloodshed in Iraq and the persistent notion–stoked by Osama bin Laden but increasingly accepted among moderates–that the West is waging an assault on Islam.

The rage expressed by members of Generation Jihad has raised concerns among European counterterrorism officials that policies pursued by the U.S. and its allies in response to the Islamic terrorist threat may be further galvanizing radicals. Says a French investigator with a decade of antiterrorism experience: “There’s a spreading atmosphere of indignation among normal Muslims that’s echoing among the younger generation.”

Besides economic deprivation the war in Iraq is also stimulating extremism:

What’s more, TIME’s reporting across Europe shows, the war in Iraq has further radicalized some Muslims, convincing them that the U.S. and Britain are bent on war with Islam and that the only proper response is to fight back. Listen to Uzair, the Savior Sect leader in London: “Muslims are being killed all over the world through the foreign policy of the U.K. and U.S. Many feel they cannot sit around and do nothing about it. What is the difference between a suicide bomber and a B-52? I really feel that war has been declared on Islam.” Iraq, says a senior French security official, “has acted as a formidable booster” for extremist groups

And some quotes of Dutch and Belgian Muslims might be disturbing for some:

In Belgium, a radical Muslim named Karim Hassoun who is head of the Arab-European League, says flatly, “The more body bags of Americans we see coming back from Iraq, the happier we are.” What’s worrisome is how openly such rhetoric is received among ordinary Muslims, many of whom consider themselves moderates. In the Netherlands, where 1 of every 16 Dutch citizens is a Muslim, it’s trendy for kids to hang on their bedroom walls half-burned American flags with Stars of David placed on them, says Mohammed Ridouan Jabri, founder of the eight-month-old Muslim Democratic Party.

Might be true all these frustrations, but as I said, not only the jihadists have these frustrations also the non-jihadists. Radicalization is a (violent) form of activism that requires some form of organization. So the question must also be who is organizing whom and for what cause?

Angeliki Papagika and partners want the Hagia Sophia to be returned to the Christian church.
Hagia Sophia Home

If you believe in the just case that Hagia Sophia should be restored to its proper religious role as a church, for which it was built in the first place, then we ask you to support our petition to the EU Parliament that Turkey should not be admitted as a member of the European Community until it restores Hagia Sophia to its original purpose as a church and not a museum.

We need a minimum of 1.000.000 signatures in order to force the European Union to consider this proposal seriously and debate it immediately as one of the conditions to allow Turkey to be admitted as a new member of the EU.

As you know, Turkey is doing everything it can today to convince the European Union that it is a worthy country to join it. If you agree with us that Turkey should not be admitted to the EU before restoring justice to Hagia Sophia, please click on “Your Signature” and send us your message.

It is a disgrace and disrespect to a religion and god when holy places are unwillingly turned purely into tourist attractions. How would the Muslims feel if one of their holiest places was turned into a museum for tourists by a conquering power?

With its conversion into a museum in 1934, Hagia Sophia was frozen in some past age, vaguely Byzantine. Directed by the then historicist paradigm that saw the past as unchanging, Hagia Sophia was also understood through the aesthetic of the great museum, that is, aloof and imposing. Both traits were useful to a Turkish government that wanted to break with the Ottoman era that lasted until after World War I. The church of Heavenly Wisdom became thus what the official Turkish act of secularisation called a �unique architectural monument of art� and hence was valued more for its age, art and historical value than for its practical and religious use.

Interesting idea but which Christian church is this monument of a great Christian past going to: the Greek-Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Coptic Church or some other branch?

And if this is going to be the rule:

It is a disgrace and disrespect to a religion and god when holy places are unwillingly turned purely into tourist attractions. How would the Muslims feel if one of their holiest places was turned into a museum for tourists by a conquering power?

…what about the Alhambra? There is going to be a mosque in the vicinity of the Alhambra but should it be given to the Muslims again (and to what branch?)? Perhaps an exchange between the Hagia Sofia and the Alhambra?

On of my favorites on the web is The Onion. This time with a very funny article on ‘Hanging Out’:‘Hanging Out’ Continues To Grow In Popularity Among Teens | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source
‘Hanging Out’ Continues To Grow In Popularity Among Teens

“How much longer will teens be content with just hanging out?” DuFresne said. “The rate at which they mature today, they are at a severe risk for rolling down, rocking high, shaking off, or tripping and slipping over and underneath. Maybe even leaking through.”

Added DuFresne: “The sooner we nip this in the bud, the sooner our youth can straighten tight and bust forward.”

An article in Asia Times Online :: Asian News, Business and Economy. by Pepe Escobar that owes much credit to Gilles Kepels book ‘War for Muslim Minds’

The battle over the future of global Islam will be fought and decided in Europe.

Whether or not it is responsible for the attacks on London, the al-Qaeda nebula is now configured as a relentless jihadi recruitment mechanism, profiting from the fact that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has been added to its original mix of extreme Wahhabism and Silicon Valley (which al-Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited in the early 1990s).

In this article the author discusses the concepts of al-wala wal-bara (”loyalty and separation”) that is crucial for understanding Mohammed B. cs ideology.

Whether or not it is responsible for the attacks on London, the al-Qaeda nebula is now configured as a relentless jihadi recruitment mechanism, profiting from the fact that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has been added to its original mix of extreme Wahhabism and Silicon Valley (which al-Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited in the early 1990s).

“Al-Qaeda” is a mutating virus, proliferating secretly in unexpected places. It used to thrive on subterfuge, evasion and deception. Now, the virus is attacking on three fronts. The Internet spreads the lethal, remixed Koran of jihad’s aims and ideology; Iraq has become the university for a new, deadly generation of internationalist jihadis; and Europe is the latest battleground where the new generation is bound to strike. The Euro-jihadi is here to stay.

“Al-Qaeda” is now a metaphor for global, deterritorialized jihad - indeed a “database” (as its original name implies) that strives to represent the microcosm of the whole Islamic umma (community). This is a political war conducted by a revolutionary vanguard. It is also a social war. It is definitely not a religious war. Whether religious war may succeed it depends to a large extent on the Muslim population of Europe, and whether it can isolate the Euro-jihadis.

No one is innocent
The killing of innocents, or massacre of infidels - as in London’s attacks - is not considered terrorism by either Osama bin Laden or Zawahiri: as bin Laden himself has made clear, it is seriously regarded as only a minor reparation for all the crimes committed against Islam since the end of the 600-year-long Ottoman Empire in 1923.

Al-Qaeda may be a revolutionary vanguard, but it is always careful to cloak its war as a war against unbelievers. In December 2002, Zawahiri published a crucial pamphlet in the London daily, al-Quds al-Arabi, widely reproduced on the jihadi Internet. He quoted a Koranic verse to justify the accidental killing of Muslims in attacks against unbelievers: the Muslims should not be there in the first place. Because it is ostensibly a war against unbelievers, al-Qaeda cannot but stress that if Muslims are associated with unbelievers, Islam itself is in danger.

Many clerics used this scholarly doctrine - al-wala wal-bara (”loyalty and separation”, in Arabic) to explain why Baghdad fell to the Mongols in the 13th century, as well as the Spanish Reconquista of Andalusia. Zawahiri used it to legitimize any “collateral damage” by jihad. The measure of Zawahiri’s influence is offered by the new, lethal and even more nihilistic generation of jihadis operating in Iraq: they have no problems justifying the killing of fellow Muslims and innocent Iraqi civilians, because for them these people are “associating with unbelievers”. Zawahiri made it clear in 2002 that any Muslim ally of America was by definition an apostate: “Jihad against Americans, Jews and their allies among the hypocrites and apostates is mandatory on all Muslims.”

The Euro-jihadis
The London investigation followed three leads: the attackers might have come from the Middle East, from Northern Africa, or they could have been British. Now Scotland Yard has established they were four men aged 18 to 30, “cleanskins” - with no criminal record - and British-born, of Pakistani origin. In short: the new, lethal, generation of suicide-bombing Euro-jihadis.

Most EU counter-terrorism analysts in Brussels - indeed, all over Western Europe - are stunned. This is what many had feared for a long time. As for rumors that London was part of a plan hatched by former Iraqi Mukhabarat agents to use British jihadis and thus retaliate inside British territory, EU analysts say they have no evidence - at least not yet - that Ba’athists were involved. But the jihadi component of the Iraqi resistance may well be. EU analysts tell Asia Times Online, “At the moment we have no evidence that former Iraq intelligence was involved, but we are studying the possibility of Zarqawi agents being infiltrated in Britain, or having come to Britain to conduct an operation.”

If “al-Qaeda”, the virus, really did perpetrate the London bombings, it won’t be confronted with the huge public relations problem posed by the Casablanca attack in Morocco. Then, al-Qaeda’s ideology - disseminated by Salafist sheikhs - had contaminated a group of lumpen proletariat Moroccans, who decided to turn their impotence into terrorism. The problem is that only fellow Moroccan Muslims were killed. The attacks on Madrid in March last year - perpetrated by Casablanca-linked Moroccans - was a different story: the victims were scores of “infidel” Europeans. These jihadis were trained by al-Qaeda. The same pattern, according to EU counter-terrorism analysts, may have played itself out in London.

Just as in Madrid, the attack was claimed by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades (which honor the Egyptian Abu Hafs, a former security chief for bin Laden and trainer of Arab Afghans, killed by American bombs in Kandahar in November 2001). Then a communique was sent to the London daily al-Quds al-Arabi. Now a communique has appeared on an Islamist website from Dubai.

Zawahiri’s jihad masterplan, elaborated in 2001, was to conduct selected, spectacular strikes whose powerful reverberation on global TV and the Internet would mobilize the Muslim masses. But Gilles Kepel, professor of Middle East Studies at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris, warns that “apart from some narrow and unlikely alliances with intellectuals or black sheep, a few random Islamic bankers, and young, dispossessed bombers, bin Laden has been unable to unify poor urban youth, the Muslim middle classes, and the Islamist intelligentsia into a coalition capable of repeating the only triumphant Islamic revolution the world has ever seen: the one that took place in Iran in 1979″.

After London, this situation may be about to change. Kepel already talks of “the fight for Europe”.

Over 10 million immigrants from Muslim countries now live in Western Europe. Their children were born in Europe, speak one or more European languages, carry EU passports, are well educated and technology-savvy, and are familiar with the maze of European institutions. Internationalist jihadis are fighting to capture the hearts and minds of these 10 million.

EU analysts, among the doom and gloom, agree that tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims are bound to peak, especially in Britain and France. Some parts of Brussels, the capital of Europe, feel like Morocco. Belgium, as well as Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Scandinavia have all tried very hard to carefully calibrate their policies in terms of keeping potential jihadis under a close watch while at the same time integrating their Muslim populations. France has been too harsh; Britain had thought it kept everything under control by monitoring “Londonistan”. Now the battle for Europe has come - a matter of fitna - sedition, disagreement, war in the heart of Islam. Fitna is Islam’s enemy within - and it’s the jihadis new thrust that is provoking the turmoil.

The question facing the jihadis is whether to force the destabilization of national governments - like those of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan - or to go deeper into internationalist jihad. In these terms, “al-Qaeda”, the virus, is not different from any revolutionary vanguard: one is reminded that Stalinists wanted to consolidate the revolution in the USSR, while Trotskyites wanted a permanent, world revolution. Until now, London was a Salafi, and Salafi-jihadi, sanctuary. Now there’s bound to be major repression - and dispersal. “Invisible” Euro-jihadis may be holed up anywhere. The point is not that “al-Qaeda” wants to impose Islam in Europe: what it wants is to impose Wahhabi values in the Arab-Muslim world, and extirpate the West from Muslim lands.

Retaliation
Salafis - closely linked to House of Saud-approved sheikhs - will keep discouraging jihad with a vengeance. They prefer discreet integration. As an example: in France, they did not even protest the law that forbids veiled girls in schools. Sheikh Yousef al-Qardawi - immensely popular because of his al-Jazeera talk show - is against suicide bombing as in September 11 or London, but he approves of jihad in Palestine.

The reverberations of London’s attacks, on the other hand, may embolden more Salafi jihadis in west Yorkshire, Hamburg, Paris or Madrid. Some of these jihadis have been to Bosnia, Pakistan, Chechnya or Iraq and are more than ready to strike in western Europe. Not to mention the new jihadis born in Europe, with clean records, apparently well-socialized, and aged between 18 and 30.

When Zawahiri launched his jihad, one of his basic aims was to punish the West, specifically the Anglo-American sphere. He didn’t foresee that the massive response would include death and destruction in the Middle East, as in Iraq. According to some Middle Eastern media reports, more than 128,000 Iraqis have been killed by the invasion and occupation since March 2003; 55% are believed to be women and children under the age 12. This figure is said to be based on information gathered in Iraqi hospitals and from the families of victims. This is how the Middle East evaluates the occupation. And this is one of the major factors giving jihadis what they see as justification for no-holds-barred retaliation against the West.

This new generation of Euro-jihadis is now turning it all upside down, profiting from widespread revulsion against the Anglo-Americans takeover of Iraq to retaliate as well as advance a Salafi worldview. This could all have been prevented by a very simple move: a real democratic project for the Middle East - before indiscriminate support for every one of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s excesses; before Guantanamo; before Abu Ghraib; before the leveling of Fallujah.

Instead, thanks to Pentagon propaganda regurgitated by corporate media, we now have a cipher, a man nobody is sure even exists - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - elevated to supernatural status. EU analysts despair: we may be entering the age of one thousand Zarqawis coming from the shadows to haunt not the US, but western Europe. It’s as much a war at the heart of Europe as a war at the heart of Islam.

Brabants Dagblad - Oss, regio nieuws, regionale actualiteiten - Een islamitisch grafveld in Oss

Het voorstel voor een islamitische begraafplaats dateert echter al uit maart 2003. Dat kwam toen van het toenmalige VVD-commissielid D. Alkir, van het Turkse reisbureau Hittit in De Galerij. Alkir stelde een 21-jarige Ossenaar van Turkse afkomst die destijds bij een eenzijdig auto-ongeluk op de Nieuwe Hescheweg om het leven kwam als voorbeeld. Die man kon niet islamitisch begraven worden. En dat bracht heel wat beroering teweeg onder diverse Turkse families in Oss.

de Volkskrant - Omhelzingen en kussen voor B.

Net als de overige twaalf mannen wordt B. verdacht van deelname aan een criminele organisatie met een terroristisch oogmerk. Na zijn veroordeling tot levenslang door de Amsterdamse rechtbank besloot het OM hem ook te vervolgen in de Hofstadzaak.

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In de NRC een interview met sjeikh fawaz van de As-Soennah moskee: Laveren tussen de wet en Allah

Jaco Alberts en Steven Derix
De radicale Haagse imam Fawaz helpt justitie
Sjeik Fawaz is een van de meest invloedrijke radicale imams in Nederland. Hij is kritisch over het Westen, maar keert zich ook tegen terreuraanslagen. Jongeren kijken tegen hem op. ,,Als hij er niet was geweest, dan waren veel jongeren echt geradicaliseerd.”

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In the Washington Post an interesting article: Taking Back Islam

Rarely has a big idea gotten more lip service and less real substance than the argument that there is a war of ideas underway for the soul of the Muslim world. Do a Google search on war of ideas and Muslim, and you get more than 11 million hits. Yet, four years after Sept. 11, 2001, the real battle is only now beginning.

In this article David Ignatius tries to understand several developments among Muslims in relation to this ‘epic’ battle.

Traditional Islam is under assault from a puritanical fringe group known as the Salafists. The name is drawn from an Arabic word that refers to the seventh-century ancestors who walked with the Prophet Muhammad. For a Christian analogy to the Salafist extremists, think of the fanatical monk Savonarola, who in the 15th century burned the books of Florence in his rage at the corruption of the Medicis. The difference is that the Salafists have access to the Internet and car bombs — and perhaps far more dangerous weapons.

He refers to Quintan Wiktorowicz, who has done research among the Al-Muhajiroun in England and is the author of Radical Islam Rising

the Salafists operate like a cult. They draw in vulnerable young people, fill them with ideas that give their lives a fiery new meaning, and send them into battle against the unbelievers. Combating this seductive Salafist preaching requires the same kind of intense “deprogramming” used to wean away converts from other modern cults.

I have some problems with the notion of ‘deprogramming’ but nevertheless many of his insights are usefull (although not new) to get a better grasp of what is going on:

He found that the group preyed on disoriented young Muslims — not poor or oppressed themselves but confused and looking for meaning. Recruitment often involved a personal crisis that provided the Muslim cultists with a “cognitive opening.”

“To many young Muslims, their parents’ version of Islam seems archaic, backward and ill-informed,” Wiktorowicz explains. Into this spiritual void march the Salafists. They provide a structured life, through a mandatory study session every week in the halaqah , or prayer circle, and a new set of life rules. Among the prohibited activities Wiktorowicz discovered in his research were “playing games,” “watching TV,” “sleeping a lot and chilling out,” and “hanging out with friends.”

Despite the salafist dominance (or thanks to?) there is something of a counter attack emerging.

Traditional Islam is finally starting to fight back against the Salafists and their self-taught, literalist interpretations of the Koran. One of the leaders in this effort is Jordan’s King Abdullah, heir to a Hashemite throne that traces its lineage back to Muhammad. He convened an Islamic conference in Amman in July that concluded with a communique on “True Islam and Its Role in Modern Society.” It reemphasized the traditional faith — the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence, the orthodox school of Shiite jurisprudence, the canon set forth over centuries of fatwas and other orthodox interpretations of what Islam means.

Rather than running scared, as mainstream clerics sometimes do when facing the Salafist onslaught, the Amman declaration was proud and emphatic. It drew together fatwas from the leading clerics in Islam, including the sheik of Al-Azhar in Cairo and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf. Another backer was Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi, who has a weekly show on al-Jazeera and is probably the best-known television preacher in the Arab world.

The declaration forbids the practice of takfir and calls for unity among Muslims and also limits the issueing of fatwas to qualified Muslim clerics.

According to Ignatius:

These Islamic leaders sense that their religion is being kidnapped by Salafist radicals with a grab-bag theology, and they are finally beginning to push back. It’s a war of ideas they should win, if they can make traditional Islam a vibrant, living faith. Young Muslims don’t want to go back to the seventh century; they want to live with dignity in the 21st.