- Shmuel Barʼs book is devoted to the fatwas (legal decrees issued by
recognized religious authorities in Islam) on jihad.
Fatwas have been employed by rebels and insurgents across the
Muslim world against westernized regimesʼ presumed heresy and foreign
domination. This was true, for example, of the Wahhabis in the Arabian
Peninsula (1881-85), the Mahdi in Sudan (1881-1885), and by Muslims
in India against the British (1881) and in Indonesia against the Dutch
(1948). [...] The defendants in the first World Trade Center trial [1993]
explained their reliance on Sheikh Omar ʻabd el-Rahman... Shmuel Bar,
Warrant for Terror: The Fatwas of Radical Islam and the Duty to Jihad,
New York, 2006, pp.11-12.
See also “Bin Ladenʼs 1998 Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders” in
Terry McDermott, Perfect Soldiers, New York, 2005, pp.267-270. This
was signed by Sheikh Bin Laden, and the emir of the Jihad Group in
Egypt, Sheikh Mir Hamzah of Pakistan, and the emir of the Jihad
Movement in Bangladesh. Hardly ignorant Muslims. ↵
dana p.
(Dana P.)
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