Essentially the most outstanding Islamic scholar in Gaza has issued a uncommon, highly effective fatwa condemning Hamas’s 7 October 2023 assault on Israel, which triggered the devastating conflict within the Palestinian territory.
Professor Dr Salman al-Dayah, a former dean of the School of Sharia and Legislation on the Hamas-affiliated Islamic College of Gaza, is without doubt one of the area’s most revered non secular authorities, so his authorized opinion carries important weight amongst Gaza’s two million inhabitants, which is predominantly Sunni Muslim.
A fatwa is a non-binding Islamic authorized ruling from a revered non secular scholar often primarily based on the Quran or the Sunnah – the sayings and practices of the Prophet Muhammad.
Dr Dayah’s fatwa, which was printed in an in depth six-page doc, criticises Hamas for what he calls “violating Islamic rules governing jihad”.
Jihad means “wrestle” in Arabic and in Islam it may be a private wrestle for religious enchancment or a navy wrestle towards unbelievers.
Dr Dayah provides: “If the pillars, causes, or situations of jihad will not be met, it should be averted with a purpose to keep away from destroying individuals’s lives. That is one thing that’s straightforward to guess for our nation’s politicians, so the assault should have been averted.”
For Hamas, the fatwa represents an embarrassing and probably damaging critique, significantly because the group usually justifies its assaults on Israel by way of non secular arguments to garner assist from Arab and Muslim communities.
The 7 October assault noticed tons of of Hamas gunmen from Gaza invade southern Israel. About 1,200 individuals had been killed and 251 others taken hostage.
Israel responded by launching a navy marketing campaign to destroy Hamas, throughout which greater than 43,400 individuals have been killed in Gaza, based on the Hamas-run well being ministry.
Dr Dayah argues that the numerous civilian casualties in Gaza, along with the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure and humanitarian catastrophe which have adopted the 7 October assault, signifies that it was in direct contradiction to the teachings of Islam.
Hamas, he says, has failed in its obligations of “maintaining fighters away from the properties of defenceless [Palestinian] civilians and their shelters, and offering safety and security as a lot as attainable within the varied facets of life… safety, financial, well being, and schooling, and saving sufficient provides for them.”
Dr Dayah factors to Quranic verses and the Sunnah that set strict situations for the conduct of jihad, together with the need of avoiding actions that provoke an extreme and disproportionate response by an opponent.
His fatwa highlights that, based on Islamic regulation, a navy raid mustn’t set off a response that exceeds the meant advantages of the motion.
He additionally stresses that Muslim leaders are obligated to make sure the security and well-being of non-combatants, together with by offering meals, medication, and refuge to these not concerned within the preventing.
“Human life is extra treasured to God than Mecca,” Dr Dayah states.
His opposition to the 7 October assault is particularly important given his deep affect in Gaza, the place he’s seen as a key non secular determine and a vocal critic of Islamist actions, together with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
His average Salafist beliefs place him in direct opposition to Hamas’s method to armed resistance and its ties to Shia-ruled Iran.
Salafists are fundamentalists who search to stick the instance of the Prophet Muhammad and the primary generations who adopted him.
Dr Dayah has persistently argued for the institution of an Islamic caliphate that adheres strictly to Islamic regulation, reasonably than the political party-based methods that Hamas and different teams advocate.
“Our position mannequin is the Prophet Muhammad, who based a nation and didn’t set up political events that divide the nation. Subsequently, events in Islam are forbidden,” he stated in a sermon he gave at a mosque a number of years in the past.
He has additionally condemned extremism, opposing jihadist teams like Islamic State and al-Qaeda, and has used all of his platforms to problem fatwas on varied social and political points, starting from industrial transactions, social disputes over marriage and divorce, to the conduct of political violence.
The fatwa provides to the rising inner debate inside Gaza and the broader Arab world over the ethical and authorized implications of Hamas’s actions, and it’s prone to gas additional divisions inside Palestinian society concerning using armed resistance within the ongoing battle with Israel.
Sheikh Ashraf Ahmed, certainly one of Dr Dayah’s college students who was pressured to go away his home in Gaza Metropolis final yr and flee to the south of Gaza together with his spouse and 9 kids, instructed the BBC: “Our scholar [Dr Dayah] refused to go away his house in northern Gaza regardless of the fears of Israeli air strikes. He selected to fulfil his non secular obligation by issuing his authorized opinion on the assault”.
Ahmed described the fatwa as essentially the most highly effective authorized judgment of a historic second. “It’s a deeply effectively researched doc, reflecting Dayah’s dedication to Islamic jurisprudence,” he stated.
