Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri is a former professor of Law and Head of Department of Islamic Jurisprudence and Legislation at the University of the Punjab. He is also the founder of Minhaj-ul-Quran International, which has branches and centres in more than 90 countries. He studied classical Islamic sciences under eminent scholars around the world, including Mecca, Medina, Syria, Baghdad, Lebanon, Morocco, India and Pakistan, and has received around 500 authorities and chains of transmission in the various branches of Islamic knowledge. He has authored around 1000 books (over 400 of which are published) and delivered over 6000 lectures around the world.
Tahir ul-Qadri's distinctive and voluminous fatwa is an exhaustive study of what the Quran and Islamic sources have to say about the use of violence, terrorism and suicide bombing and is a categorical and unequivocal rejection of all acts of illegitimate violence, terrorism and every act of suicide bombing against all human beings, whether Muslim or non-Muslim. At the same time, he also distances himself from all, whether fellow prominent religious leaders or Muslim youth who have the potential to be radicalized, who would seek to justify and excuse suicide bombing and terrorism for any reason. As he noted in an interview with Christiane Amanpour, Terrorism and violence cannot be considered to be permissible in Islam on the basis of any excuse. ... Any good intention or any mistake of foreign policy of any country or any pretext cannot legalize the act of terrorism. This important fatwa is a major contribution to Islamic discourse and teaching and to inter-religious understanding in the 21st century, offering a thought-provoking message and lesson for all who seek global peace and justice. --Foreword by Prof John Esposito The Shaykh's scholarship is remarkable. The fatwa rests upon a granite-solid foundation of research and references from the Quran, reliable Hadith of established provenance, opinions of the Beloved Prophet s Companions and the classical texts of Islamic scholarship that are widely accepted by all main schools of thought. I have pored over not only the exhaustive text of the fatwa, but also over its hundreds of footnotes. Carefully selected for their reliability and clarity, the citations are employed by the Shaykh with obvious and commendable scholarly concern for precision and accuracy and after all issues of truth, objectivity and bias have been carefully weighed on the scales of his mind. In selecting sources, building his case brick-by-brick and expressing his argument powerfully and clearly, he has demonstrated profoundly good judgement. The power of Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri s argument stems from its completeness and comprehensiveness as well as from the fact that, for the first time in a fatwa, an internationally renowned scholar has left no stone unturned in his determination to demonstrate that there can be no possible justification for deliberate violence in the name of Islam outside of the context of organised warfare. This is itself only permissible when undertaken according to strict criteria based only on self-defence and adherence to justice. Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri categorically demonstrates with dependable scholarship that regardless of any claimed motives, however righteous they may seem, evil acts will remain evil. Indeed, the Shaykh demonstrates that suicide bombings and other forms of terrorism are so unjust and wicked that they place the perpetrators outside of Islam. That is, these acts are the acts of unbelievers, not martyrs, and they will expose those who do them to the gravest likelihood of eternal punishment after death. --Introduction by Dr Joel Hayward Fareed Zakaria, CNN: While past [fatwas] may have hemmed and hawed about where the Koran condoned terror or particular kinds of violence, this one is definitive. It says there is no theological justification for terror in Islam. Nicholas Kralev, The Washington Times: ... the new fatwa makes the most detailed and comprehensive case against Islamic extremist. Christian Caryl, Foreign Policy Magazine: Qadri s fatwa aims to establish a bit of healthy clarity. His finding, which builds its argument around a meticulous reading of the Quran and the hadith (collections of oral statements attributed to the Prophet Mohammed), makes the case that terrorist acts run completely counter to Islamic teaching... He s especially keen on targeting the coming generation, younger members of the global ummah (the community of believers) who he contends have lost their bearings in the roiled post-9/11 world. Carla Power, TIME: Qadri s fatwa may well be the most detailed anti-terror fatwa ever written... His fatwa: Terrorism is at all times, in all conditions, against Islam. The murders terrorists commit will send them, not to paradise, as often claimed, but to hell. The Globe and Mail, Canada: It is a direct and powerful argument aimed at the young and at all those whose silence or equivocal statements have been understood by the young as tacit approval. --International Media
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