Sheikh Qaradawi returned to Egypt, to be greeted not at the airport, but at Tahrir:
Sheik Qaradawi, a popular television cleric whose program reaches an audience of tens of millions worldwide, addressed a rapt audience of more than a million Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square to celebrate the uprising and honor those who died.
“Don’t fight history,” he urged his listeners in Egypt and across the Arab world, where his remarks were televised. “You can’t delay the day when it starts. The Arab world has changed.”
On Friday, he struck themes of democracy and pluralism, long hallmarks of his writing and preaching. He began his sermon by saying that he was discarding the customary opening “Oh Muslims,” in favor of “Oh Muslims and Copts,” referring to Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority. He praised Muslims and Christians for standing together in Egypt’s revolution and even lauded the Coptic Christian “martyrs” who once fought the Romans and Byzantines. “I invite you to bow down in prayer together,” he said.
He urged the military officers governing Egypt to deliver on their promises of turning over power to “a civil government” founded on principles of pluralism, democracy and freedom. And he called on the army to immediately release all political prisoners and rid the cabinet of its dominance by officials of the old Mubarak government.
Scholars who have studied his work say Sheik Qaradawi has long argued that Islamic law supports the idea of a pluralistic, multiparty, civil democracy.
But he has made exceptions for violence against Israel or the“He is enormously influential,” Mr. Shahin added. “His presence in the square today cemented the resolve of the demonstrators to insist on their demands from the government.”
Political statements:
MY:
Youssef al-Qaradawi, head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, has issued a fatwa permitting the killing of Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi. He urged Libyan military forces not to obey the Libyan leader's orders to fire at Libyan protesters.
In a live interview on Al Jazeera satellite channel on Monday, al-Qaradwai said whoever can fire a bullet at Qadhafi should do so.
About Qaradawi
JPost: In 2006 he told the Brotherhood website IkhwanWeb that the Islamist group “asked me to be a chairman, but I preferred to be a spiritual guide for the entire nation.”
Today he is best known in the Arab world for his program Shari’a and Life, broadcast on Al-Jazeera to an estimated audience of 40 million. A 2008 Foreign Policy magazine poll put Qaradawi third on its worldwide list of public intellectuals.
In his 2001 article for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, “Al- Qaradawi: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Reuven Paz noted the contradictory nature of the cleric’s statements.
He was one of the first Islamic scholars to have condemned the September 11 attacks – but has supported attacks on US forces in Iraq and suicide bombings against Israelis.
“There is no enmity between Muslims and Jews,” he told rabbis from the radical anti-Zionist sect Neturei Karta visiting Qatar in 2008. “Jews who believe the authentic Torah are very close to Muslims,” he said, adding that “Muslims are against the expansive, oppressive Zionist movement, not the Jews.”
On several other occasions, however, the cleric has made comments critics denounced as anti-Semitic incitement.
Criticims of Qaradawi's positions on Shia from Egypt:
Qaradawi, an Egyptian who lives in Qatar, told a Cairo newspaper that Shiites are dangerous heretics armed with "millions of dollars and trained cadres of Shiites doing missionary work in Sunni countries."
Such talk dismays moderate Sunnis such as Egyptian writer and analyst Fahmy Howeidi. He says he respects Qaradawi, but says Qaradawi's comments about Shiite proselytizing were mistaken and their timing was quite dangerous.
"We already have the Americans raising the pressure on the Shiites in Iran, the Shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon and elsewhere, and now this," Howeidi said. "We don't need more tension just now."
Since his initial interview, Qaradawi has refined his attack, focusing on Shiite Iran as the most urgent threat to Sunni society. The response from moderates has been relatively quiet.
Egyptian author Tareq al Bishri disagrees with Qaradawi, but points his sharpest criticism elsewhere.
"We worry more about the American occupation of Iraq than we worry about any Iranian influence in Iraq," he says. "Here in Egypt we worry about the American support of Israel, which has its own expansionist ideas. From a religious point of view, whatever disagreements we may have with the Shiites are simply theological debates within a recognized framework."
Several analysts agreed that the muted response from some moderates is the latest sign of how nearly eight years of the Bush administration's foreign policies have tilted the political playing field in the region. Were it not for fear of being seen as siding with the Americans, they say, the reaction to Qaradawi's remarks would be much stronger.
Some of his positions:
Qaradawi on FGM
However, the most moderate opinion and the most likely one to be correct is in favor of practicing circumcision in the moderate Islamic way indicated in some of the Prophet'shadiths– even though suchhadithsare not confirmed to be authentic. It is reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said to a midwife:"Reduce the size of the clitoris but do not exceed the limit, for that is better for her health and is preferred by husbands".Thehadithindicates that circumcision is better for a woman's health and it enhances her conjugal relation with her husband. It’s noteworthy that the Prophet's saying"do not exceed the limit"means do not totally remove the clitoris.
Actually, Muslim countries differ over the issue of female circumcision; some countries sanction it whereas others do not. Anyhow, it is not obligatory, whoever finds it serving the interest of his daughters should do it, and I personally support this under the current circumstances in the modern world. But whoever chooses not to do it is not considered to have committed a sin for it is mainly meant to dignify women as held by scholars.
"We already have the Americans raising the pressure on the Shiites in Iran, the Shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon and elsewhere, and now this," Howeidi said. "We don't need more tension just now."
Since his initial interview, Qaradawi has refined his attack, focusing on Shiite Iran as the most urgent threat to Sunni society. The response from moderates has been relatively quiet.
Egyptian author Tareq al Bishri disagrees with Qaradawi, but points his sharpest criticism elsewhere.
"We worry more about the American occupation of Iraq than we worry about any Iranian influence in Iraq," he says. "Here in Egypt we worry about the American support of Israel, which has its own expansionist ideas. From a religious point of view, whatever disagreements we may have with the Shiites are simply theological debates within a recognized framework."
Several analysts agreed that the muted response from some moderates is the latest sign of how nearly eight years of the Bush administration's foreign policies have tilted the political playing field in the region. Were it not for fear of being seen as siding with the Americans, they say, the reaction to Qaradawi's remarks would be much stronger.
Some of his positions:
Qaradawi on FGM
However, the most moderate opinion and the most likely one to be correct is in favor of practicing circumcision in the moderate Islamic way indicated in some of the Prophet'shadiths– even though suchhadithsare not confirmed to be authentic. It is reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said to a midwife:"Reduce the size of the clitoris but do not exceed the limit, for that is better for her health and is preferred by husbands".Thehadithindicates that circumcision is better for a woman's health and it enhances her conjugal relation with her husband. It’s noteworthy that the Prophet's saying"do not exceed the limit"means do not totally remove the clitoris.
Actually, Muslim countries differ over the issue of female circumcision; some countries sanction it whereas others do not. Anyhow, it is not obligatory, whoever finds it serving the interest of his daughters should do it, and I personally support this under the current circumstances in the modern world. But whoever chooses not to do it is not considered to have committed a sin for it is mainly meant to dignify women as held by scholars.
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