Published: 03/03/2010

SUICIDE BOMBERS HAVE ‘NO JUSTIFICATION’

SUICIDE bombers were described yesterday as the “heroes of hellfire” by a leading Moslem scholar in a fatwa condemning terrorists as the enemies of Islam.

Pakistan-born Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri said there were no “ifs or buts” about terrorism and such acts had no justification in the name of Islam.

In a news conference attended by MPs, the Metro-politan Police, charities, think-tanks and other groups, he urged Islamic leaders to convey the message that terrorism cuts people off as true followers of Islam.

“They can’t claim that their suicide bombings are martyrdom operations and that they become the heroes of the Moslem Umma (the wider Moslem community). No, they become heroes of hellfire, and they are leading towards hellfire,” he said.

“There is no place for any martyrdom and their act is never, ever to be considered jihad,” he said.

Dr Qadri said his fatwa – a religious edict or ruling – was an “absolute” condemnation of terrorism without “any excuses or pretexts”.

“Terrorism is terrorism, violence is violence and it has no place in Islamic teaching and no justification can be provided for it, or any kind of excuses or ifs or buts.”

The 600-page fatwa by Dr Qadri, founder of the global Minhaj-ul-Quran movement, which has an office in Dundee and thousands of supporters across the world, will be translated into English in the coming weeks. His talk will also be available online in a bid to counter extremist versions of Islam available on the internet.

The fatwa has been called “arguably the most comprehensive” theological rejection of Islamic terrorism to date by the Quilliam foundation counter-extremism think-tank. Minhaj-ul-Quran runs courses in combating extremism in centres throughout Britain including Glasgow. A fatwa, an edict by a Moslem scholar, may concern any aspect of Islamic life.

The term became famous in the west in 1989 after author Salman Rushdie was forced into hiding following a “death fatwa” by Ayatollah Khomeni, then supreme leader of Iran, on the grounds his book, The Satanic Verses, had “insulted” Islam.