“The believers are naught else than brothers. Therefore make peace between your brethren and observe your duty to Allah that haply ye may obtain mercy.” (Al-Hujurat, 49:10)

PRAISE BE TO ALLAH ALONE.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DECLARATION

Prior to the Islamic International Conference held in Amman, the Kingdom of Jordan gathered fatwas from the most important religious clerics and institutions of all the different sects of Islam (including Sheikh Al-Tantawi of Al-Azhar, Grand Ayatollah Al- Sistani, the Grand Muftis of Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Oman; the most senior religious authorities of all the different denominations of Islam including from Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Yemen, and the Sheikh al-Qaradawi) on two central questions: Who is a Muslim? and Who has the right and the qualifications to issue fatwas? Based on these fatwas (17 in total, representing all the major madhhabs in the Islamic World) the delegates achieved a unanimous consensus on these two all-important points and signed their names on a document to that effect.

The declaration is of the utmost importance to the future of Iraq and to the war on terrorism for the following reasons:

(1) The war on terrorism cannot be won by military and intelligence means alone. The only way to win the war on terrorism is to win the hearts and minds of Muslims, and thus to dry up the pool of potential recruits to extremism. This cannot be achieved by western-style television or radio stations, which appeal to and influence only tiny secular, urban, westernized minorities. It can only be done through the authority and legitimacy of Islam itself. Unlike other religions, Islam has not been held together over hundreds of years by religious or temporal institutes, or by a clerical caste—rather, it has been held together by the Holy Qur’an and other texts which in effect interpret it. Thus religious authority lies in written texts and their interpretations. What the extremists did, before they ever took a single violent action, was to reject the traditional internal checks and balances on the interpretation of these texts. Indeed, to this day, before and behind every single terrorist act there is a pseudo-fatwa permitting or commending it. What the conference achieved is to put those traditional checks and balances (in theory at least) back on the interpretation of these texts.

(2) From the beginning in Iraq, the Takfiri foreign militants have targeted the Shi‘a in order to create a civil war and widen the conflict, thereby entangling the coalition forces in a never-ending conflict of which their countries will eventually weary. By achieving a consensus that all Sunni and Shi‘as are Muslims and that all have basic common beliefs and practices, the conference has taken the theological and religious basis out of this sectarian conflict, and exposed for what it really is: sedition and mass murder. Without a religious solution in Iraq there can be no political solution, and hence no end to the conflict. The conference is thus providing “the religious solution”.

(3) Through the explicit recognition of the “Eight Schools of Jurisprudence” of Islam and their methodology, it implied the recognition of seven issues which are vital for Muslims and non- Muslims to live together harmoniously in this world: (i) The protection of human rights, individual rights and freedoms and social justice under Islamic law; (ii) The protection of women’s rights, children’s rights and ethnic minorities rights under Islamic law; (iii) The absolute prevention of individual violence, aggression and terrorism under Islamic law; (iv) The prevention of the politicization of religion and of offensive “jihad” by Muslims in the modern age; (v) The guarantee of respect and tolerance for other religions under Islamic law; (vi) The injunction according to Islamic law for Muslims to be loyal and good citizens in non- Muslim countries in which they are not oppressed and enjoy full freedom of religion (as is the case precisely in the U.S. and the U.K.), even if those countries are in conflict with Islamic-majority countries; (vii) The permissibility according to Islamic law for Muslims to chose their own form of temporal government for themselves (within the parameters of the maqasid or “goals” of the Shari‘a) including modern democracy.

King Abdullah II’s historic conference was made possible at this period of history due to a number of historical factors and recent political developments, specifically: the galvanization of world opinion against terrorism following the events of 9/11; Western pressure on the financial resources of the terrorists; Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia’s courageous moves in his own country to recognize and honour the Shi‘a and Sufi minorities despite the vehemence of the Wahabi opposition to this; the co-operation of the traditional religious leadership in Egypt (especially that of al- Azhar); the recent coalescing of the Shi‘a religious leadership in Iraq, around the supreme authority of Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani. This conference was attended by over 175 leading religious figures from over 40 countries and marks one of the most important efforts to combat the problem of extremism and violence in the modern world.