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While addressing the press during a visit to Egypt, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke about the ongoing negotiations with Iran over that country's nuclear programs. As he and President Obama have several times in the past, Kerry cited a report that Iran's "Supreme Leader" issued a "fatwa" against the development of nuclear weapons by Iran, a fatwa that remains unpublished according to a recent article by U.S. News. Nevertheless, Kerry said that the United States has "great respect – great respect – for the religious importance of a fatwa." Here are his remarks in context: Now I want to...

It appears that Islam Web, a popular website owned by Qatar’s Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, may have been responsible for the rationale used by the Islamic State to burn alive a Jordanian pilot captive. On February 7, 2006, the widely accessed Arabic website issued Fatwa No. 71480, titled “The Burning of Ias bin Abdul Yalil by Abu Bakr.” The fatwa, or Islamic decree, concluded that burning people as a form of punishment is permissible. Ironically, hours after the Islamic State burned the pilot alive, Fatwa No. 71480 was removed from Islam Web. What is interesting to note is...

Anjem Choudary, A London-based Islamic cleric who lectures on Sharia law, says that it was acceptable to Islam to burn the Jordanian pilot alive. "If you want to look at this from an Islamic perspective, what they are arguing is that it is qisas, in other words, reciprocation. "The fact is that the pilots — not just this Jordanian one but many others via drones and other bombing campaigns — have burned a lot of men, women, and children, and indiscriminately. "Obviously we don't see the pictures or images of those because they're not available, but hundreds of thousands of...

A prominent religious scholar in Saudi Arabia has reportedly issued a fatwa against building snowmen in the kingdom, stating the practice is not acceptable to Islam. Mohammad Saleh Al Minjed said people must not build any snowmen or snow models of animals, according to Gulf News. However, making snow models of lifeless things, such as ships, fruit and buildings, was apparently acceptable in Islam, the scholar said. "It is not permitted to make a statue out of snow, even by way of play and fun," he reportedly said. "God has given people space to make whatever they want which does...

A prominent Saudi Arabian cleric has whipped up controversy by issuing a religious edict forbidding the building of snowmen, describing them as anti-Islamic. Asked on a religious website if it was permissible for fathers to build snowmen for their children after a snowstorm in the country’s north, Sheikh Mohammed Saleh al-Munajjid replied: “It is not permitted to make a statue out of snow, even by way of play and fun.” Quoting Muslim scholars, Munajjid argued that to build a snowman was to create an image of a human, an action considered sinful under the kingdom’s strict interpretation of Sunni Islam....

More than 40 European leaders and almost every French official turned out for the massive unity rally in Paris Sunday — but there was no sign of the U.S. Neither President Obama or Vice President Biden made the trip to Paris, although dozens of other world leaders and officials put ceremony aside and jostled for space amid the crowds in a stirring show of support against terrorism. The U.S. did send Attorney General Eric Holder to attend a pre-march terrorism summit convened by French President Francois Hollande. Holder, 63, joined with Hollande in condemning the recent Paris attacks in the...

Cop Killer Ismaaiyl Brinsley may have been responding to a fatwa.Ismaaiyl Brinsley murdered NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Raphael Ramos in cold blood on last Saturday in Brooklyn.. City officials confirmed that Brinsley had attended a Mike Brown rally in New York City. He took video at the protest. Police Commissioner William Bratton said Ismaaiyl was carrying $100 bills in his pocket. But he had no job or home. Andrew G. Bostom, professor of medicine at Brown University, told Steve Malzberg that Ismaaiyl may have been responding to a fatwa to murder police officers. “People are reluctant to even acknowledge...

No one knows if the Obama administration will manage in the next five weeks to strike what many in the White House consider the most important foreign policy deal of his presidency: an accord with Iran that would forestall its ability to make a nuclear weapon. But the White House has made one significant decision: If agreement is reached, President Obama will do everything in his power to avoid letting Congress vote on it.

During his United Nations address, President Barack Obama went out of his way to heap praise on a particular Muslim cleric. The ideology of ISIL or al Qaeda or Boko Haram will wilt and die if it is consistently exposed, confronted, and refuted in the light of day. Look at the new Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies – Sheikh bin Bayyah described its purpose: “We must declare war on war, so the outcome will be peace upon peace.” A fine sentiment, but one that Sheikh Abdallah bin Bayyah probably does not mean in the way that Obama thinks...

Greg McKennaSeptember 26, 2014 As the West grapples with the increasing reach of ISIS on home soil and as random and planned acts of terrorism continue to develop, the Islamic world is not siting idly by. Earlier this week in his speech before the United Nations, US President Barack Obama signaled out the leadership being offered by a group of Muslim Clerics led by Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah. This group, known as the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, issued a very powerful Fatwā* in opposition to the actions of ISIS and as a warning to young Muslims who...

'Muslim leaders have reportedly issued a fatwa condemning Britons who fight for extremists in Iraq and Syria. The fatwa, which The Sunday Times newspaper said had been issued by imams, is the strongest denunciation yet by the Muslim community of UK citizens who join militants of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, formerly known as ISIL and ISIS. Issued by a learned Muslim scholar, a fatwa is an edict that may concern any aspect of Islamic life. Technically it cannot be revoked and dies only with the person it is imposed on. The Sunday Times reported six senior Islamic scholars have endorsed...

An Egyptian cleric formerly known as the "preacher of the revolution" during the revolt against President Hosni Mubarak warned Egyptian television viewers this week that Muslim Brotherhood sheiks have issued a fatwa permitting "anal jihad" for terrorists far from their wives, which is exactly what it sounds like.

ISIS fighters are ordering terrified families in Iraq to hand over their daughters for sex. Leaflets in the captured cities of Mosul and Tikrit claim the women – virgins or not – must join jihad, or Holy war, and cleanse themselves by sleeping with militants. Those that refuse to do so are violating God’s will, it is claimed, and will be beaten or killed. ISIS fighters have been taking women captive in Syria since last year when a Saudi-based cleric issued a fatwa – religious order telling them to. Now the sick practise is happening to Iraq. (...)

Quislings: At the same time our president springs dangerous terrorists from prison, he has quietly promoted an Islamic cleric who has issued fatwas calling for the death of U.S. troops with "child bombs." The State Department last week had to apologize for singing the praises of the creep — Sheik Abdallah Bin Bayyah — in a Tweeted message promoting his Muslim Brotherhood organization. But officials there are only sorry they got caught. The same bunch last year issued a visa for the radical cleric so he could visit, of all places, the White House. That's right, the administration knew full...

The State Department’s Counter Terrorism (CT) Bureau promoted on Friday a controversial Muslim scholar whose organization has reportedly backed Hamas and endorsed a fatwa authorizing the murder of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The CT bureau on Friday tweeted out a link to the official website of Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, the vice president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), a controversial organization founded by a Muslim Brotherhood leader “who has called for the death of Jews and Americans and himself is banned from visiting the U.S.,” according to Fox News. Bin Bayyah is reported to have been one...

A State Department spokeswoman expressed surprise Thursday to hear that a purported “fatwa” by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei prohibiting nuclear weapons, which President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry periodically cite, does not appear on a list of fatwas on Khamenei’s official website. “Oh, really?” Marie Harf said during a press briefing after a reporter brought this to her attention. “I will say, just in general, I’m not an expert on the fatwa process certainly, or on the supreme leader’s website,” she said. “But what I will say, and I think what people have said, is we...

John Kerry and Barack Obama are betting the entire world on the proposition that Khamenei’s statements against nuclear weapons are sincere, and not intended to deceive the Infidels into complacency. Lets hope they’re right, and that this whole thing doesn’t blow up in their faces, and ours. But given their repeated genocidal statements against Israel, it would be better to be prepared for all contingencies. “John Kerry: US Welcomes Ayatollah Khamenei’s Fatwa against N. Weapons,” from Iran’s state-run Fars News Agency, March 22: TEHRAN (FNA)- US Secretary of State John Kerry appreciated the fatwa (religious decree) issued by Supreme Leader...

Saudi scholar says buffet meals are Haram A member of the Standing Committee of the Council of Senior Scholars, Sheikh Saleh bin Abdullah Al-Fawzan, said that buffets offered at restaurants are haram. The basis of his statement was that buffet meals have a fixed price, but the quantity of food that can be consumed is unknown or unlimited. According to Sabq news, the senior scholar said that the quantity of food and the price of the meals must be clear and known. He was responding to a listener‘s question about buffets on Holy Quran Radio. “One must not simply go...

Kangaroo meat ‘halal,’ Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate says Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet) has issued a fatwa stating that kangaroo meat and grasshoppers are “halal” food, but Islam bans eating “badgers, martens, weasels, beavers and sea otters.” “Islamic scholars agree that ‘halal’ animals that are not mentioned in the Quran and in the hadith [the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad] are those that don’t eat feces and carcasses, and which are therefore neither wild nor coarse,” the Diyanet’s High Committee of Religious Affairs said in response to a citizen’s question. As such, the fatwa continues, kangaroo is classified in the...

One of the world's most respected Islamic institutions has issued a fatwa against a Hollywood epic about Noah's Ark because it 'contradicts the teachings of Islam'. Russell Crowe's £75million film Noah has also been banned in three Arab countries after religious leaders complained that it depicted the Biblical figure - who is also a holy messenger in the Koran. Due to premiere later this month, the blockbuster will not show in Qatar, Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates and several other countries are expected to follow suit.