Salman al-Ouda Criticizes Hezbollah

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

His Eminence Sheikh Salman al-Ouda criticized Hezbollah over the security initiative it carried out in Beirut on 7 May 2008, and called on it to change its name. Sheikh al-Ouda spoke in his own name, on his own website, but the reader senses that he was speaking in the name of the Sunnis, as though Hezbollah posed some challenge to the Sunnis.

Sheikh Salman al-Ouda’s messages reach me from time to time over the internet, and I find — may God reward him with good — that some of his juristic opinions are quite useful, and that raising and discussing them contributes to developing Islamic jurisprudence within ever-widening and deepening horizons of knowledge across every field of life. But I do not sense, in what he presents, any distinctively qualitative leap in Islamic thought. Perhaps this stems from the chronic problem Muslims suffer from: focusing on jurisprudence (matters of the permitted and the forbidden) rather than on thought (matters of truth and falsehood). It remains vital for Muslim scholars to summon sufficient courage to engage the battle of ideas, since this brings a deeper understanding of the matters of the Islamic religion, one that eases the process of practical application that propels the nation forward.

I do not know why Sheikh al-Ouda wants Hezbollah to change its name, given that the Party is the only “Party of God” that confronts the Zionist entity directly and inflicts military defeats on it. If the matter concerns the words of God Almighty — “And whoever takes God, His Messenger, and the believers as an ally: indeed, the Party of God, they are the predominant” — then there is nothing that negates Hezbollah’s claim to take God, His Messenger, and the believers as its allies. Beyond that, it stands guard over the security of the whole nation in confronting Israeli-American arrogance, which desecrates the sanctities of Muslims and defiles their homelands, particularly in Palestine, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula. Had Hezbollah not been devoted to the teachings of Islam, keeping vigil, prostrating to God, determined to apply the tolerant heavenly teachings, acting according to God’s command — “And prepare against them whatever you are able of power and of steeds of war…” — it would never have triumphed over Israel. It is certainly quite different from the Arab regimes, which do not ally themselves with God and His Messenger, which pant after America and Israel in order to preserve some remnant of an ugly reputation, and which pay no heed to what God has revealed and commanded.

Hezbollah is committed to the prohibition God, glory be to Him, set out in the noble verse: “And do not consume one another’s wealth unjustly or send it [in bribery] to the rulers in order that you might eat a portion of the wealth of the people in sin, while you know [it is unlawful].” It does not consume wealth unjustly, and the Party’s leader, His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, is neither greedy, nor a fraud, nor a hypocrite, nor a liar; his financial circumstances resemble those of any ordinary Lebanese person, and he takes only what he needs — he owns no estates, no hotels, no companies, no tourist resorts. He is careful with every dinar or dirham he receives, because it is public money that must be devoted to improving people’s conditions and to defending Lebanon and the nation as a whole. By comparison, the Arab regimes — foremost among them the Saudi regime — squander the nation’s money in ways neither God nor His Messenger would approve, and put their wealth in the service of the people of the West, who pursue Muslims, particularly the revolutionaries among them who refuse humiliation and disgrace. So what are the nation’s Sunni scholars doing to rein in the rulers and turn things upside down over their heads? Some of them certainly try, but many side with the rulers against those who reject this disregard for the nation and its wealth.

…who curry favor with the rulers. If Israel is defeated, most Arab regimes lose the protective umbrella hovering over their heads, and become threatened with extinction even if Hezbollah never incites against them at all. Israel’s defeat is like an earthquake whose aftershocks are bound to ripple, one after another, across the Arab scene, with the Arab regimes the first to pay the price. And since the Arab regimes cannot openly declare hostility toward Hezbollah simply because it has defeated Israel’s own party, they have resorted, as usual, to the rotten historical conflict between Ali and Mu’awiya, digging up the grave of Sunni-Shia strife in the hope that it might find new life.

It is essential that Sheikh Salman al-Ouda be reassured that the Sunni masses do not want to wage war against Hezbollah or against Shia Muslims in general, and that every attempt at sedition is bound to fail. Intelligence services have tried to inflame Sunni-Shia conflict in Pakistan, Iraq, and Lebanon, but sensible people among both Sunnis and Shia have risen above it and thwarted a strife that benefits no one but the nation’s enemies — foreigners and Arab regimes alike. The overwhelming majority of Sunnis support anyone who fights Israel and America, and stand with Hezbollah in its struggle to keep its weapons drawn against the enemy. And if Sunni religious figures continue in the manner Sheikh al-Ouda proposes, they will find themselves surrounded by supporters who claim to be defending Islam, when Islam wants nothing to do with them.

If there is fear that the Shia might come to dominate the Islamic stage because of Hezbollah’s effectiveness, its faith, and its strength, then there is a clear path open to Sunnis to seize the initiative: developing an effective resistance to confront America and Israel, or supporting the Sunni resistance that already exists. Hezbollah does not prevent Sunnis from supporting the Sunni al-Qaeda organization, or the Taliban. Here is Hamas, a Sunni resistance movement, and likewise Islamic Jihad, and here is the Iraqi resistance. Go ahead, then, and support the valiant Iraqi resistance, the Palestinian resistance, and Jund al-Sham in Lebanon.

The problem with the religious figures whom the Arab regimes seduce is that these regimes want no resistance whatsoever — neither Sunni nor Shia. Had Hezbollah been an agent going along with the American-Israeli project, the Arab regimes would never have criticized it, and religious figures would never have raised the question of Sunni and Shia. The proof of what I am saying is that Muslim religious figures stand firmly against the Sunni resistance in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia.

There remains the question of Hezbollah’s takeover of Beirut, which Sheikh al-Ouda criticized. Had His Eminence Sheikh al-Ouda understood the gravity of the threat posed by control over Hezbollah’s communications network, he would have hesitated before blaming and criticizing. Whoever decided to tamper with Hezbollah’s communications network was the one who decided on war, and what Hezbollah did was nothing but a preemptive step that prevented war in Lebanon. Hezbollah and its allies — Christians, Sunni Muslims, Druze, Alawites, and political parties — could take control of the whole of Lebanon within hours, but the Party has absolutely no intention of doing so. All Hezbollah asks is that no one stand in the way of what it does regarding the confrontation with Israel. The problem is that Israel’s and America’s allies in Lebanon never stop their provocations, aimed at dragging Lebanon into Sunni-Shia strife, and dragging Hezbollah into a war of attrition whose price every Lebanese will pay, and from which every Israeli and American will benefit.

I hope His Eminence Sheikh Salman al-Ouda will come to see things through a comprehensive regional and international lens, and will not remain a prisoner of small matters that the enemies of Islam exploit for the sake of sedition. Many Sunnis look forward to Sunni religious scholars who will pave the way toward revolution and liberation. What they need is not a duel over minor points of jurisprudence between Sunnis and Shia, but a duel to restore the dignity of Muslims and to establish the great Islamic state whose goodness extends to every nation.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “سليمان العودة ينتقد حزب الله” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.