The Crowd of Muftis Is Destroying Muslims

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Every day a new crop of self-styled Muslims appears before us, on satellite screens and on websites, instructing us in countless marginal matters that never touch the essence of our lives — entrenching within us dullness, foolishness, distraction, torpor, and delusion, and driving us toward error. These are self-appointed muftis who multiply and speak with arrogance and insolence, imagining that this grants them sanctity and turns them into religious authorities able to hand out seats in Paradise and in Hell. It is clear, from the kind of fatwas they issue, their subjects, and the way they are phrased, that these people are ignorant and narrow-minded, perhaps even the instruments of deviant, misguided agendas, and that their knowledge of religious matters is extremely limited and mixed with a great deal of nonsense and superstition. Below are some of the fatwas circulating on various websites:

If a woman lifts the hem of her garment while climbing the stairs, for fear of falling to the ground, the devils will catch up with her.

Praising a non-believer is forbidden.

If you greet a Christian, your ablution is nullified.

If you forget something during prayer, you must spit to your left and to your right as expiation.

It is forbidden for a woman to smile while showing her teeth.

Using an intensive care unit is forbidden, because it defies the will of God.

Rising up against an unjust ruler is forbidden.

It is forbidden for a woman to ride a bicycle or a horse.

Reading too much leads to associating partners with God.

Confining a beautiful woman who does not cover her face is obligatory.

Teaching the social sciences and humanities is forbidden, because Islam has already given them their due.

Thinking is forbidden, because it leads to sin.

Thought has limits, and whoever exceeds them falls into the abyss.

Devils dance upon mustaches.

A woman undressing in front of her husband makes divorce obligatory.

…paralyzes minds and blinds hearts. It is clear that these people have taken it upon themselves to strike at the Islamic religion, giving it a naive and ridiculous face so that it becomes a laughingstock and a farce before the nations and before the sons of the Arab nation. Their goal, whether they are conscious of it or not, is to turn people away from the path of God and away from the great causes that Islam is truly concerned with — establishing justice among people, and devoting oneself to knowledge, work, and striving on every level in order to free people from injustice, enslavement, ignorance, submission, and backwardness.

This class of irreligious “religious” people issues no fatwas on making peace with the Zionists or on the desecration of Muslim holy sites; they say nothing about the foreign forces present on Muslim soil, nothing about visiting the White House, nothing about the scientific backwardness of Arab universities, nothing about the injustice rulers inflict on the poor and the destitute, nothing about exploitation, enslavement, and oppression, nothing about the importance of production and of technical, social, and cultural development, and so on.

The observer can see that this misguided group is deeply preoccupied with sowing discord among Muslims, devoting great effort to inciting bloody strife between Sunnis and Shia, and dredging up the filthy history of conflicts among Muslims in order to revive it now, ignite wars, and drain the nation’s sons materially and morally.

This is an extremely dangerous group for Islam, for Muslims, for Arabs, and for our homelands. If these people are not simply ignorant, then they are serving agendas and schemes hostile to the nation, working to strike the nation from within, under religious slogans.

Do not fear them. These people send no one to Paradise, and the keys to Hell are not in their hands; being wary of them and pursuing them saves the nation from their evils and their strife. The likes of them led Europe into harsh and bitter wars, and destroyed the fortunes of European nations; and running after them means that a darker future awaits the nation, with all its peoples, sects, and denominations.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “زحمة المفتين تُهلك المسلمين” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.