Sheikh Yusuf Al Qaradawi, the spiritual head of the clerical fascist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, has put his foot in it – again!
He has called the Shia heretics:
On 10 September, speaking to Al-Masry Al-Yom, the venerable 82- year-old used words such as ” mubtadi’oun ” (heretics) to describe the Shia. He went on to argue that “attempts to invade the Sunni community with their money and cadres trained to do missionary work in the Sunni world” constituted a “danger”. The Shia, said El-Qaradawi, are “invading” Egypt, which is predominantly Sunni, as well as Algeria, Sudan, Morocco, Nigeria, Malaysia and Indonesia. “They practise the tradition of takia [concealing their intentions] and do not reveal what they believe in.”
Al Qaradawi has long been an outspoken proponent of Sunni-Shia sectarianism. You may remember the poem he read out on Al Jazeera a few years ago:
The Crusaders have returned once more, and they move about in the [Iraqi] lowlands.
They spread perversion in the land, as though it were ground free for all to graze in.
They are again spilling blood, without shame of exposure.
And the Shi’ites play well the role assigned to them.
The treacherous role, whose beginning and end are known to all.
He also took part in an inter-denomination Sunni-Shiite colloquium, where he took the following position:
Leading Qatar-based Sunni cleric Sheikh Yussef Qaradawi on Saturday denounced what he described as “attempts to convert (Sunnis) into Shiism” in countries that are predominantly Sunni.“It is not permissible for a sect to try to spread in a country that is dominated by the other sect,” he told the conference.
Egyptian-born Qaradawi also accused Shiites in Iraq and neighboring Iran of harboring militias that kill and displace Sunni Arabs in Iraq, which is wracked by sectarian killings that claim scores of lives daily.
Given that his organisation, Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood, is funded by most-definitely-Shiite Iran, huge efforts have been made in the past to paper over the cracks. However, the aged Qaradawi clearly won’t be silenced.
This time, Qaradawi’s words have been met with absolute fury:
His comments triggered counter-attacks by Shia religious leaders. Lebanon’s Mohamed Hussein Fadlallah described El-Qaradawi’s discourse as one of “incitement” and challenged him to speak out against Christian missionary activity in Muslim countries. The Iranian news agency designated him a spokesman for “international Freemasonry and Jewish rabbis” while Shia activists in Qatar filed a lawsuit against the Egyptian scholar on Monday — he has a Qatari passport — in an attempt to strip him of Qatari nationality and deport him from Doha where he is based.
A tool of rabbis and freemasons? But of course!
What is notable about Qaradawi’s outburst is this. Pretty much every aspect of it – the accusation that certain sorts of Muslims are invading other people’s countries, and that they are practicing taqqiyah – is precisely the sort of observations that normally get people an “honourable mention” in Bob Pitt’s “Islamophobia-Watch”.
