Qaradawi: Politics is more important than Hajj!

This year’s Hajj was one of the most successful and distinguished Hajj seasons as it is evident via the testimony of more than two million pilgrims and the praise of Arab and international media outlets and via the astonishing development of the services provided to the pilgrims. In spite of this success and distinction, political disputes dominated the minds of some people, especially in Iran and Qatar.

No matter how much the Muslim Brotherhood members study sharia, they could never be considered jurists because their understanding of Islam differs from what Muslims have known for centuries. The Muslim Brotherhood and political Islam jurists have jumbled up the priorities as while Islam focuses on faith and worship, they can only understand this religion from an angle of politics and partisan interests.

The tutor of terror

One of the most striking examples of this mindset is demonstrated by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has adopted the Qatari nationality and who is considered one of the most important Qatari weapons for spreading chaos and terrorism around the world via his extremist fatwas, violent political positions and incitement to kill and destroy.

After the four Arab countries boycotted Doha, the latter continued to adopt its stubborn and arrogant approach. Hence it went in the direction of Iran and Turkey and sought to find any means to support terrorism and extremism. This is what Qatar did after the anti-terror quartet put it under international scrutiny to monitor its relations with terrorism in Sunni and Shia countries, and this is why Qatar attacks everything related to these four countries as for example it went as far as preventing its citizens from performing Hajj, the fifth pillar of Islam, with the threat of imprisoning and punishing them.

In order to satisfy and align with the Qatari policy, Qaradawi wrote a tweet in which he underestimated the fifth pillar of Islam and people condemned it. He justified the Qatari move of preventing citizens from performing the obligatory religious duty. This is normal for Qaradawi and political Islam jurists. They prioritize the interest of the party and the organization over Islam. To them, Islam is a means to grab power and authority.
Agent provocateur

When he was a young member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Qaradawi wrote a poem in which he praised Abdel Meguid Hassan, the killer of Mahmoud El Nokrashy Pasha. The poem which the Brotherhood youths echo says:

“Respect and salutations to you Abdel Meguid,
you have become a role model for the youth
You poisoned a dog and another dog came after him
and for every dog we have someone to poison him”

Qaradawi then fled from Abdulnasser’s oppression to Qatar. He played a dangerous role in many of the Muslim Brotherhood organizations in the Gulf. After the Vilayat-e Faqih revolution in Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood and Qaradawi supported it, and when the Brotherhood-Iranian axis of resistance was formed, it was supported by Qatar and Qaradawi.

Qatar established the International Union of Muslim Scholars for him to compete with traditional religious institutions. It gave Qaradawi millions to gather followers across the world and in the virtual world. Qatar sought to announce him as a religious reference that resembles the Vilayat-e Faqih reference in Iran to a great extent.

Qaradawi was one of the most famous figures to have who allowed suicidal operations and encouraged youths to execute such operations. All violent religious militias emerged after the issuance of his fatwas — starting with Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram to ISIS and dozens of terrorist militias who kill Muslims and peaceful people around the world. He fully supported the terrorist Lebanese Hezbollah and the terrorist Hamas Movement in splitting Palestinians and exploiting the Palestinian cause in order to serve Iran and its axis of resistance.

His bloody and terrorist ideology was fully exposed at the onset of the fundamentalist spring, which is known as the Arab Spring. At that time, Qaradawi seemed to have lost his balance and his terrorist voice grew hoarse. He went to Egypt and hijacked Tahrir Square under the protection of the Muslim Brotherhood.

There he talked about fundamentalism and extremism and spoke of an agenda that had not occurred to any mind there. He started to issue provocative remarks and unfounded fatwas based on the Brotherhood’s concepts which believe that taking over power is religion’s most important pillar and that restoring the Islamic Caliphate is the most important duty.
Purveyor of violence

During this ominous ‘Spring’, Qaradawi was live on television when he issued a fatwa to kill Muammar Gaddafi and encouraged everyone around him to kill him. This reflected a shameful compliance with the Qatari policy which was in support of terrorism and its groups in Libya at that time. Qaradawi thus issued this fatwa without any hesitation. Any true jurist, however, that has nothing to do with politics and its games would have never done so.

The ominous ‘Spring’ was a significant stage that exposed the jurists of political Islam, its groups and movements as this is when they realized that their time has come, and they must emerge to the surface and grab power in every country they operate in. Their political statements and positions started to become clear, and this cautioned countries and governments to the real danger represented by the Muslim Brotherhood and its branches across Arab countries and the world.

Interpreting Islam by making politics its core and main duty is a pure concoction of the Muslim Brotherhood, an approach that has never been seen in the history of Islam. It all started with Hassan al-Banna who manipulated religious texts to serve his project, organization and group. At one time, he denounced politics and at another he made it central in his rhetoric.

Any serious researcher can track his contradictory statements on politics and religion, as well as his praise of fascism and Nazism. He established the secret organization and ordered assassinations of politicians, judges and figures who opposed him. Yusuf al-Qaradawi is one of his disciples and group members who resumed the path after him to spread terrorism and extremism.

Qaradawi has lured a lot of the unspecialized intellectuals to his fold by issuing some tolerant fatwas on sub-jurisprudential matters. Some of them thus saw him as a symbol of tolerance and simplification. However, Qaradawi’s equation is clear, simplification on sub-jurisprudential issues and extremism in politics. Qaradawi is an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology in general but he became one of the major symbols of this movement.

Qaradawi is the Brotherhood’s bard of modest talent. Whoever reads the poems in his book Nafahat wa Lafahat or any of his other books would not miss the extremism and terrorism in his writings from his famous ‘Nouniya’ poem till his last poem. They are all highly provocative and incite terrorism and destruction.

Finally, Qaradawi and his ilk are mere cogs in the wheel of the Muslim Brotherhood which only finds in Islam what serves its political project.